


Aftermath of Rock Bottom

by Sigmu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Amortentia, Consensual Sex, Consenting Adults, Domestic Fluff, Drugs, Female Harry Potter, Finding New Love, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Fred Weasley Lives, Ginny Weasley Bashing, Good Severus Snape, Healing, Hedwig Lives (Harry Potter), Love Potion/Spell, Mildly Dubious Consent, Moving On, Other, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Past Relationship(s), Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Running Away, Severus Snape Lives, but in a way that doesn't make her out to be a paper cutout villain, complex villain, first chapter is a doozy, moving on from past relationship, unconsensual drug use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 107,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigmu/pseuds/Sigmu
Summary: Ginny had not expected to become the bad guy at age fifteen. She hadn’t realized that everything she had: Harry, her family, her friends that it could all disappear one day.What happens after everything collapses?…Harry discovers he is not biologically male, his powers are going wonky on him, and he had just finished fighting a bleeding war.All of this was bad enough on it’s own. The love potion thing though, that was a line Ginny should have never crossed, and now… Harry had no choice but to get the hell out of dodge and figure out who he was in peace.…Severus never asked for any of this.Why couldn’t Potter ever give him a break, why couldn’t the boy settle down into his role in wizarding society so that Severus could be allowed to enjoy his retirement without having to fear the worst when his best friend’s son suddenly goes missing after being poisoned and leaving not a trace of where he had gone?What could have possibly prompted the boy to leave his perfect life?HEED THE WARNINGS FOR EACH CHAPTER!
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 38
Kudos: 296





	1. Spiraling down

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Description of nonconsensual attempted teenaged sex, alcoholism, self-destructive thoughts, nonconsensual drug use, and overall creep factor level eleven!
> 
> This is me experimenting with complex bad guy characters. People always talk about drug abuse or alcoholism but never what happens after when you hit beyond rock bottom, and you have no choice but to sober up or die. I chose Ginny because the movies made her seem kind of psychotic, and the books made her out to be a flat character. In fact when I had first read the books I had been positive that Ginny had dosed Harry with love potion with how quickly he instantly fell for her and completely ignored the fact that she had only been dating a very good friend of his in order to make Harry jealous.  
> This did not transpire and I had been left pretty disappointed with the whole sticking to the flat character angle but I understood. Though I was confused since Ginny barely registered as much of a character save for in the second book. I mean, in the books Ginny could be seen as a self-insert character for any reader who had a crush on Harry, but their relationship was not developed enough for me to get into.  
> And then JKR decided to become a huge jerk so for Harry i'll have him be misgendered his whole life and the repercussions of that, and i'll be combining movie Ginny with book Ginny and exploring a little further on the down sides of using teenagers as soldiers and the resulting downward spiral PTSD would have on someone her age.

Chase, Destroy, Regret.

This is the summarized incredibly short version of the story of how Ginny fucked up her life. These three words sum up everything, the entirety of her relationship with Harry Potter, all in these three words. It was all there was to know as far as she was concerned, but then again she had been there to see it collapse before her very eyes so there was a lot of weight to the context behind these three words.

The long version of the tragic story of her love affair with Harry Potter?

Ginny hadn’t thought she would become a bad guy when she was fifteen.

Simple as that. She had not thought or even known that the bad guy in the relationship was herself. She would even go as far to say that she had been too young, but that would be making up excuses and she… had no excuses for what she had done. Just because she didn’t understand a few things about relationships did not excuse her complete lack of empathy at the time. She had eventually grown out of it, as many teenagers do as they grow into adults and they mature and shite…

…But by then it had been too late. The damage she had done as a teenager had been… too much for her to turn around and say “So terribly sorry about what a right bully I had been as a stupid teenager, I’ve grown up now and have realized in horror that I was a right creep, forgive and forget?”

Yeah, no. No forgive and forget. She had crossed too many lines for that to be an option.

All there was left in the aftermath was regrets, and having no choice but to move on with her life. Some things just… could not be forgiven once you take that first step down a destructive downward spiral. Sometimes you have to rebuild your life without Harry Potter being in it as you had dreamed of since you had been seven-years-old.

Granted all she knew about love potions was what she had read in trashy witch romance novels and in those nothing bad ever really happened. Yes, she knew that some love potions were illegal and others weren’t but she just thought that the illegal ones were poisonous or something while the others were nothing more than just a funny gag. Her brothers sold them in their shop for a while for pity’s sake! That was where she had bought the stuff in the first place!

Harry never saw her as anything but a kid. When she had been eleven Harry had awkwardly tried to avoid her after she gave him that poem for Valentine’s day her first year, and he sort of steered clear the next year as well. The year after that he had been too preoccupied with the Tournament, then Umbridge- well- everyone was too occupied with Umbridge to be honest, and the next year she had gotten fed up with herself for meekly standing by and letting The-Boy-Who-Lived slip through her fingers!

She had worked hard to stand out, to be popular, to achieve lots of things while in school that she normally wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been there! All so that she could be worthy- talented enough to be _The_ Harry Potter’s girlfriend. Good enough to snag the Savior without anybody contesting her claim on him. And people noticed her! She was super popular! Popular enough that people started asking her why she wasn’t with Harry Potter yet given that he was her brother’s best mate. They compared her to Harry’s mum because of the red hair thing and pointed out that it only made sense for the two of them to get married, practically fate really. She-

Was not noticed by Harry. At all.

No. He had a crush on Cho Chang. Did not even give Ginny a second look or invite her to the Yule Ball. After Cho Chang people would give Ginny looks of pity, and boys started asking her out because she was clearly not going to snag Harry Potter. The Purebloods approached her in the traditional way while non-Purebloods like Dean approached her in that… very direct muggle manner. Highly informal, not to mention unromantic. No correspondences, no poems, no symbols for courtship, just: “ _Hey, how U doin’ pretty lady? Wanna go out sometime_?”

Not that her family was traditional in the slightest when it came to Pureblood things but still! Six years at Hogwarts and Dean learned nothing of proper courtship for a Pureblood?

How uncultured.

It… shouldn’t have been something for Ginny to get upset over given that she actually didn’t like Purebred courtship either. Not when the only thing that seemed to be attached to it was basically the boy looking her over as if she were a race horse to see if she had decent enough traits to bring home and make Pureblood babies with. But it did bother her because Dean wasn’t Harry Potter. If it were Harry who approached her that way she’d be super into it, if Harry even so much as smiled at her she’d be in a good mood for the rest of the day! She was so in love she hardly knew what to do with herself.

Everybody, save for Harry Potter, was noticing her.

Dean noticed her, but not Harry.

She had been in love with Harry Potter long before she ever met him, when Ron brought him home to the Burrow she knew, with every fiber of her being, that she would marry Harry Potter. It only made sense, given that he was Ron’s best mate and both mum and dad practically adopted him. In Ginny’s mind it was just like all of those books she’d read about how it was always a guarantee that if a guy made friends with your brother and was accepted by your family, you’d be marrying him.

It should be stated that those same books were written by wizards. Not usually witches.

Also it should be noted that wizards generally fall for a girl first before they try to befriend her family so that they could endear themselves for her father’s approval. Generally the suitor did not make friends with the maiden’s brother first only for the sake of being friends. Because there was a difference between genuine friendship and courtship. Most of the time the girl didn’t… have much say, she was just _told_ by her family to marry her brother’s friend and that was that. Arranged marriage. Acquiring a bride.

Not dating her because she wanted it.

It wasn’t until she was twenty-three before she had learned about that distinction. Embarrassingly enough, given that she was a Purebred and should have _known that distinction existed_!

Later, she’ll blame _Witches Weekly_ for starting the whole mess the way it had. She should have slapped herself silly the second she even thought _Witches Weekly_ would give her good advice. Should have realized after about a week of “dating” Dean to get Harry’s attention and Harry just… didn’t care. Well, he seemed to care that Ron was freaking out that Dean was putting his hands all over his baby sister but as for Ginny herself…

He ignored her in favor of studying his potions textbook as if it was the most entertaining rag he’d ever seen! As if he had a bloody crush on the author of such a bland, school textbook!

She had seen enough signs of a boy in love to know that Harry was utterly smitten with something about that book, talked about the witch who wrote it as if she were a genius and the best thing since chocolate. It stung, how she had spent years working so hard to be perfect for him and he’d fallen for stupid Chang and a damn book for fucks-

She needed to get his attention!

She knows that it sounds really bad.

Because it _is_ bad. What she had done to him.

Terrible.

…Evil even.

But… well… she had been fifteen. It wasn’t much of an excuse, she knows now, years later, it was a fucking pathetic excuse, but… the thing to keep in mind was that she was born into one of the sacred twenty-eight families. Yes, her parents are against a huge chunk of Purebred culture because it’s toxic and horrible in general, and had Ginny spent more time at home from ages eleven to fifteen she would have never even considered it, because her parents would have been able to teach her the reasons _why_ they didn’t practice most Pureblooded customs. Why dad didn’t speak to grandma ever again after aunt Samantha’s funeral and why mum, even with her waxing about she and Ginny being the last of the Prewetts, couldn’t stand to be around a lot of Purebred families and never complained about dad’s obsession with all things muggle.

But Ginny never learned about how grandma dosed aunt Samantha with love potion to get her to marry uncle Camelopardalis and how even love potions couldn’t create love that would last, and in a potion-induced madness aunt Samantha-

But Ginny had spent most of her teenaged years at a boarding school, and when she was at home everybody was also at home, so there was never any time to be taught anything because her parents were counting on McGonagall to do that.

But McGonagall was just a teacher, not a parent. She could not do everything when she had so many children to look after.

Ginny did not dose Harry Potter regularly with the potions she could easily get from her brothers’ shop via anonymous school owl and her birthday money. First of all she had to make the potion stretch since she only had enough funds for a few bottles at a time, secondly _Witch Weekly_ had only suggested infrequent doses whenever a wizard seemed to have a wandering eye since the potion was just to get the wizard to notice you. Likely this weak sauce advice was also so that the magazine could avoid lawsuits but as a fifteen-year-old kid Ginny didn’t know anything about that. All she knew was that A Magazine Said It Was Okay so it must be legal.

The look on Harry Potter’s face when the potion first took effect had been something that had filled Ginny with overwhelming relief, for the first time in her life he was actually _looking_ at her!

The outrage he had at the sight of her with Dean had been an extra thrill and when Harry Potter gathered up his Gryffindor courage to kiss her no one objected. Even Dean was fine with it, Ron and her whole family rejoiced! No one opposed their match. They all said it was like the romance of Harry Potter’s parents, because He looked so much like James Potter and Ginny-

But she hexed the guy who tried to compare her to the late Mrs. Potter. Ginny refused to be compared to anybody. Particularly while Harry Potter was within hearing range. Because Harry Potter would freak out if he was told he was only with Ginny because she had red hair like his mum.

Harry wasn’t Purebred, not like them, he wouldn’t understand.

It had been like a fairytale, that first while, because Harry had swept Ginny off her feet and finally! Finally after years of fantasizing and pining Ginny had finally succeeded in snagging the Savior of their world and-

Then Harry was preoccupied with Draco Malfoy, and war stuff, and Ginny used up two or three more small doses just to get a little bit of attention in the whole mess of everything.

Ginny had said she was fine with Harry dumping her for her own protection while he was off fighting a war.

She wasn’t, not really, but she didn’t cry or say anything against it because he was an emotional mess after Dumbledore died and she… just didn’t want to have to deal with him… being all emotional. Didn’t know what to do with him when he was angry and crying really.

At fifteen she understood he was grieving but at the same time she was… kind of feeling a bit numb about everything herself. Secretly she thought he was acting like a whiny _girl_ about everything.

She wasn’t fine with it though, because she was going back to a Hogwarts ruled by Snape and he wasn’t really around during the summer and she had used up six small doses throughout the school year just to get some attention from him and she was worried that-… she was… going to die…

Die a virgin.

Yes! She knows it was the most stupidest thing to be concerned about! But at fifteen Ginny had wanted something other than an occasional gentle kiss from Harry Potter to establish that he was hers! That she was special to him! Kisses were nothing when he had already given his first one to Cho, and Dean had kissed Ginny with way more passion, had gotten further with Ginny than Harry Potter ever had!

She had been fifteen, getting ready for war, and she had wanted to be able to say that she had been Harry Potter’s first. She was nearing the end of her supply and she had wanted him to remember whom he belonged to. At the very least. Given it started to look as if they’d never get back together even though Harry assured her it was just because he didn’t want her to be in danger for being the last person to have dated him.

So when Harry visited them at the Burrow that summer, a calm before the storm, she had a small window of opportunity to make her mark. Hopefully bind him to her.

Just to be sure she had put one medium dose into his tea, the last of her supply because Fred and George packaged the stupid potions into small fucking bottles, and had convinced Hermione to distract Ron while she and Harry Potter had “some time alone to catch up” and such.

Harry had kissed her as he had always done: chaste, sweet, and while she had been impatient she hadn’t wanted to spook him-

Until Ron ruined the moment by bursting in through the door in the middle of their first kiss since school and yelled like a moron for the sake of her “feelings” even though Ron had no place acting as if he knew what Ginny was thinking about anything! He couldn’t even treat Hermione well enough for her to want to date him let alone ask Hermione out! Ron knew nothing about women!

And then there was nothing more for it because Ginny’s chance slipped out of her fingers, Harry Potter was running off on a secret mission, and Ginny had to go to Hogwarts to do her part.

It was worse than she had thought it would be. Hogwarts. the war, not knowing if her family was alive or dead, Percy being a traitor, teachers not doing a damn thing but sitting back and looking sorry for themselves (though that was far from unusual for them) Snape-… messing with her brain half the time…

Snape was protecting her, and Harry had tried to protect her too because even though Harry Potter had dumped her she was still considered _Harry Potter’s girl_ , normally that would fill her with vindicated glee but when the reality hit her that she… maybe should not have gotten Harry Potter to date her before the war because hurting her would hurt Harry Potter was a real and viable threat…

She understood then, why Harry Potter had dumped her.

Still! Rude of Snape to mess with her brain!

She killed people in the final battle. She lost count how many. They were wearing masks so it wasn’t as if she could see them as people and feel remorse or think of anything past her rage and her fear and the dirt and blood and the horrible smell of burning flesh and gasses escaping the guts of bodies that had been sliced up and cut down all around her and one masked figure she hit so hard with a boiling jinx that his heated blood misted and got up her nose-

It had been a horrible sickly sweet smell heavy with the taste of iron, and she had to take a moment to throw up before moving forward. All instinct, all rage, nothing but death and fear as people fell all around her.

Ginny had been relieved when the battle was finally fucking over and they had won, but she hadn’t been able to celebrate because Fred was in pretty bad shape, _alive_ and cracking weak jokes when he wasn’t too busy passing out, but not doing well. Percy, the bastard, showed up last second and for a very scary full minute she has a curse she had heard a Death Eater use ready at the tip of her tongue that would boil Percy from the inside out and-

She stays her hand. Percy had yanked Fred out of the way from the worst of a Death Eater’s curse and gotten him to safety. For that she spared her older brother his life, even though she fantasized about hurting him for a long while until a few weeks later when it came out that Percy had actually never been a traitor so much as he had been smart enough to put two-and-two together after the whole Barty Crouch thing in her third year and had only acted like a loyal mild-mannered clerk while secretly sabotaging the bad guys from within the Ministry. Apparently there was a lot one could do with boring old paperwork to cause a lot of people a lot of headaches down the line.

Ginny… felt guilty for dreaming about killing her own brother and being happy about it after that came out. Horrified at her own self and for the first time drank herself into a stupor so she wouldn’t have to think about it..

But that was much later, because in the days after the final battle she was hearing a lot of stories and mum had been treating her as if she were still a little girl and Ginny… was very, very angry. Everything was so… alien, as people staggered off and tried to go back to normal as if nothing had happened, and she was angry.

She was sixteen and she felt like screaming, because she hadn’t wanted to be here, she hadn’t wanted any of this.

She was sixteen and she realized in the cold morning after the final battle that she had forgotten the taste of her mum’s cooking, or how to look at a sunrise and think of it as pretty. The sunrises were still there to be seen but Ginny just for the life of her could not think to know how to see them as beautiful or feel anything about them as she had once done in the past. Mum brought over biscuits after the battle but someone else’s blood was still in Ginny’s sinuses and her mother’s embrace felt smothering and Ginny had to focus to just breathe and not throw up. Had to focus on breathing so that she wouldn’t shove her mum away and scream.

Ginny had still had rage singing through her veins and she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Harry doesn’t kiss her, she had expected him to, because he was Harry Potter and he was supposed to sweep her off her feet and snog her senseless and they’d sneak off and shag for a week and he’d find her a ring and his love for her was supposed to make everything better. Heal her. She had wanted him to heal her and make it all better like it was in the stories.

James Potter had the decency to propose to his girlfriend in his seventh year. Everybody knew that the Potters’ love for one another sustained them though bad times. Everybody always talked about how in love they were. Harry, being his father’s son, the son of a hero and the Savior, was supposed to make it all better.

She had been sixteen and all she knew about love was that it was supposed to fix things. like in the books that said that only true love could tame any angry and spiteful wench.

She had been sixteen and she had convinced herself that Harry Potter loved her not because of the love potion but because she caught his attention and theirs would be a love even greater than what she had dreamed about long before she had met him.

Instead he just gives a relieved sigh to see that not only she, but her family as well was alive before stumbling off to pass out in a broken corner of what used to be the castle. Not rescuing her from her family who were all there and getting too loud and bothersome, not kissing her with more passion than Dean ever had given her, and not shagging her until the world made sense again, not even to make a heartfelt proposal, but instead… passing out. In a corner. Not being heroic of romantic at all. She was so pissed at that that she spitefully didn’t check up on him and part of her briefly hoped he died in that corner.

She was relieved to see him alive too, don’t get her wrong.

But she had been sixteen, had just spent the past nine months at a Death Eater-run Hogwarts and had fought in a long battle, she was angry and confused and numb and all Harry could do was ignore her pointed _get-me-out-of-here_ expression as if he didn’t even see it and leave her with her family while he took a _nap_. Sure, she was happy that her family was all alive and shit but they were being all loud and crying and there had been so much crying and Ginny didn’t want to deal with crying.

 _She_ wasn’t crying. She considered herself too strong and mature to cry. A grown-up by that point. She shouldn’t have to deal with being expected to be all maternal and weak like just any other girl. Ginny wasn’t like other girls. Ginny considered herself too strong to cry and she deserved to be allowed to shag her boyfriend in celebration of their victory and move on with her life.

Nothing was going the way she had planned.

That was the day that the seeds of resentment for Harry began to grow. The day he had stumbled off to sleep in a corner instead of swooping in to be her hero and she was like one big exposed nerve and just could not give a rat’s arse what the fuck he was going through because she still had someone else’s blood up her fucking nose! And she was still, so, so very angry at everything that she could barely see anything without wanting to rip it to shreds!

This, she would later learn, was what most muggle soldiers would call a symptom of shell shock. She had just gone from killing spree rage of kill or be killed to everything suddenly stopping when the big bad guy kicked it. Her brain was literally unable to deal with this sharp shift in situation.

And then the feeling only got worse, because she finds out about how Ron had ran off from Harry and Hermione at one point in a pansy-ass emotional snit because Hermione was too preoccupied to snog him or whatever and Ron had been able to go back home AND NO ONE FORCED HIM TO GO TO HOGWARTS BECAUSE THEY DRESSED THE FUCKING STUPID GHOUL UP AS HIM AND SAID HE WAS SICK!

Maybe it had been more complicated than that, maybe at the beginning Ginny would have fought everybody to go to Hogwarts in order to help out, it was completely irrational, stupid even, yet Ginny could not help but take note that all of her _brothers_ got to be spared going to Hogwarts, that the twins had been allowed to drop out and disappear, that Ginny could have just as easily been sent to go work in a shop in Ireland because she was of age to drop out or stay with stupid Fleur’s relatives or MAYBE BE ALLOWED TO GO WITH STUPID HARRY POTTER! Because Ginny would have been more useful because she sure as hell would not have whinged all over the place like Ron.

Yes they say it was the stupid cursed necklace that did it, that made Ron go loony, but Ginny had experience with that, Ginny had to live with a piece of Voldemort inside her head when she had been eleven! All Ron got was a heartfelt _‘aww widdle Ronnie needs kissy kisses from Hermione to make him stay put like good widdle boy’_ , with Ron they talked about it and told him it wasn’t his fault FOR LEAVING THEM TO DIE! With Ginny they awkwardly just shoved the whole thing under the rug and PRETENED IT NEVER HAPPENED!

They… nobody wanted to listen to what Ginny had to go through, they just wanted her to shut up and forget it.

Ginny may have said she was fine by not being allowed to go, and she had felt important knowing that Harry was trusting her to keep everybody in school safe… had sent his girlfriend to a school run by Death Eaters, directly into the clutches of the Carrows… he had been fine WITH EVERYTHING-!

But no. No, no Harry had not been fine. Harry had been worried. Checked in on her using the map. Had been worried sick and he had killed Voldemort and he was the Savior and her future husband. Ginny still had her family and she was going to marry Harry Potter after all of this was over because she had WON! This was how these stories ended wasn’t it? She won, she gets to have the boy and the fucking happily ever after. She should be happy that her family were all here and they were all alright.

She was happy. Ginny was deliriously happy.

Really.

But she couldn’t celebrate because Fred was swarmed by medi-wizards and… mum was fussing over Ginny as if Ginny hadn’t just fought in a war, as if mum and dad and all of her brothers had sent her off and yet they expected her to be the same little eleven-year-old pathetic twerp that she had been when all of this had started for her six years ago.

Ginny finally got fed up with her family and had volunteered for the job to search for bodies and survivors while mum had to go off (finally!) for a bathroom break.

She had been able to breathe easier being away from the smothering presence of her family, something that had never bothered her before but in that moment Ginny just… couldn’t.

It was grim work, seeing to the bodies of her classmates. Kids only a few years younger than her some she couldn’t recognize because their bodies had been mutilated. Hufflepuff here, Ravenclaw there, No Slytherins though. None.

Because they had hidden in the dungeon like cowards. Choosing not to die for their own cause when push came to shove.

Ginny was too wrung out and much more relaxed without her family nagging her to fully contemplate setting the dungeons ablaze but it flitted through her mind. Dimly she considered that she’d be horrified by these thoughts of killing Percy or burning Slytherin dorms with people still possibly in them when she was fifteen and her world was nothing but rosy visions of marriage and she had a boyfriend who cared about her.

But she had been sixteen and went through hell because of the Slytherins who were inhuman fuckers that didn’t think about consequences or human decency or even having the honor to go down with what they had started. She felt she was allowed to at least think about it after laying a sheet over Colin (what was he even doing there? He was a muggleborn that was supposed to be in hiding) and pocketing his camera to give to his family later.

Then she was distracted because Lavender (the fuck was a girly-girl like her doing here?) twitched and groaned and Ginny had to alert the medi-wizards and hold a kerchief over the older girl’s face to stem the worst of the blood loss until she was taken away.

“Oh if only there was something that could have been done to prevent all of this!” McGonagall had laminated while taking a fortifying swig from her flask as she and Ginny watched them cart Lavender away.

Which was the wrong thing to say because for the past nine months Ginny had thought up of at least three dozen ways the teachers could have ganged up on Snape and the Carrows, imprisoned them, took over the castle, sent the half-bloods and first years away through the secret passages and smuggle them to that French magical school whose Headmistress was chummy with Hagrid, shored up the castle’s defenses, and used the house elves to bring people food while they slowly evacuated the whole castle until nobody but Snape and the Carrows were left imprisoned inside.

Instead of doing what McGonagall and the other teachers always had done whenever something went wrong: stand off to the side looking sorry for themselves. _“Oh if only there was something that could have been done to prevent all of this!”_ Ginny’s arse! The teachers only went all bad ass super awesome heroes when it was most convenient for _them_! It didn’t escape Ginny that they were all alive while their students, the children they were supposed to protect, were dead!

Ginny was constantly assured whenever it was brought up in conversation afterwards that there was more to it than that, that McGonagall was drinking a revitalizing potion not booze, but she held confidently on the stance that any excuses were bullshit, and in the past nine months that cold hollow feeling Ginny felt whenever she was reminded that the teachers had left her for dead in the Chamber of Secrets only grew into cold anger.

Teachers never did anything when bad things happened. How could Ginny respect them when it was the kids who always solved everything for the lazy pricks?

Showing up with a flask only served to confirm to Ginny all of the resenting suspicions Ginny had about her head of house. Bitch probably spent most of the time in the past year wallowing at the bottom of a whiskey glass.

In spite Ginny wordlessly wandered off, before her mum could find her and while the old cat was too busy with Brown. She went to find the remains of McGonagall’s office and rip apart the woman’s drinks cabinet. Shrinking down and pocketing all of the bottles within with plans to have a proper adult date with Harry and the two toasting to their victory with Scotland’s finest. Then he’d shag her and propose marriage and all would be right with the world.

Except that never happened.

Harry Potter said that he wasn’t the same person she had fallen for and that he was in no condition for a relationship with anyone for a very long time. That they should stay broken up and she should move on.

And just like that all of her plans went up in smoke.

Ginny had been bundled off for the Burrow immediately after that while Harry stayed behind to help clean up what was left of the castle, go to trials, he said he wanted to exonerate Snape’s memory first thing before anything else happened. Madam Pomphrey also had said that Harry was very ill after all of those months on the run with very little food and he was going to spend a lot of time being checked over by the medi-witch when he wasn’t busy helping to clean up and going to trials and funerals and junk.

And with that Ginny was taken to her childhood home, while Harry got to stay out and be a grown-up Ginny had to go home and go back to being the baby of the family as if NOTHING HAD CHANGED!

It had been a challenge getting her hands on more potion in order to get Harry back. She couldn’t brew it because mum was smothering her and there was no blippin’ privacy, the twins were going to be out of business for the next year at least, and she couldn’t talk to Harry alone over the summer because he mostly hung around mum and dad to make sure they were okay and no one would let them alone because they were concerned about HARRY’S FEELINGS BUT NOT HER’S!

But Ginny had been patient before, and since Harry was clearly in no condition to be looking at anyone else she had time. She decided that he seemed in pretty rough shape so she’d let him have his time to himself and approach him when he was not crying so much. She even started looking at apartments and jobs because she was an adult now and she was keen on getting her life on track. She would be seventeen soon and as a legal adult she was going to live with Harry Potter and they were going to shag and get married the first thing that they moved in together.

Only her parents had told her that she was going back to Hogwarts to make up for her missed sixth and seventh years because McGonagall said all sixth and fifth years had to take an extra two years to make up for what was lost during the war because they needed skilled people going out into the workforce.

Which was rich since she had just fought a war that her parents never fought harder to keep her out of it. Her brothers hadn’t fought to keep her out of it. She was SICK OF HAVING TO GO BACK TO MOTHER FUCKING HOGWARTS!!!!!!!

It was worse somehow than the journal incident. Where everyone conveniently decided to forget that Ginny had been being _possessed by fucking Voldemort and nobody gave a damn about what the hell Ginny had been feeling because_ OUT OF FUCKING SIGHT OUT OF FUCKING MIND!

Ron didn’t have to go back, the twins didn’t have to go back, Ginny would be seventeen in a few months and she certainly didn’t have to go back! She was of legal age, and yet when she contested her parents she was _grounded_! Punished for doing what they were fine with letting her older brothers do!

In desperation she borrows a patchworked cloak and a wig from the twins’ room, and then raids her mum’s makeup to disguise herself, muttering a silent apology to Ron as she nicks money from his purse.

It would not be the first time she will wind up nicking money from those around her.

She uses the floo to first make a stop in Knockturn Ally, why it was still open at all after all of the shite with the was anybody’s guess. She didn’t really know her way around but… she had _heard things_ in the school dorms. About a particular shop to be more exact. One where you could request to buy “a bottle of washer fluid for the tough spots” and you would be handed a bottle of amortentia in return.

It had just been a rumor spoken in hushed tones amongst the Purebloods, claiming their relatives or older friends frequented it, and she had been utterly mad to try to go out looking for a place that wasn’t likely to exist.

Yet it did exist. The owner of the shop was of the charming winking sort, not an ogre like she had been half-expecting. In fact if Ginny had met the man in Diagon Ally she would not have pegged him as the illegal criminal he was at all. He seemed to also be in disguise but then again so was she… and half the people in his shop so…

Next she took the floo in the Leaky Cauldron to get herself up to Hogsmeade and directly to Hogwarts to try to find Harry and get him to let her stay with him.

Except Harry wasn’t there. He was busy at a funeral, in fact he wasn’t likely going to be back for a long while because he was so busy he hadn’t talked to hardly anyone in months.

She’s not sure what prompted her to start looking in the library. Except she had seen a cart go by and she figured that her love life was so incredibly pants by that point that she might as well take advantage of the lack of security and go see if the forbidden section had anything as juicy as she had always heard it had.

Later she half deluded herself by convincing her mind that the book titled: _Nyse Advyse Frm Baltha thy wife_ , had just fallen into her lap, but the truth was that she had heard about the tome in question on and off throughout her life and had actively been searching for it. Had stolen it as if it had been her right to.

When she gets back home she pushes her dresser in front of her closed bedroom door and sits on the floor in front of her two finds for a very long while.

This was the moment where adult Ginny could no longer justify what her younger self had decided to do next. Her younger self had been aware that she had just purchased an extremely illegal potion that could land her butt in jail for at least five years on possession alone. She had been aware that the book _Nyse Advyse Frm Baltha thy wife_ was widely criticized by witches and wizards alike and was more infamous than revered. Ginny at sixteen had looked at what she had in her possession, known that it was wrong what she was about to do, and instead of flushing the potion down the toilet and chucking the book, she had taken out one of the bottles she had stolen from McGonagall’s liquor stash, the same bottle that Ginny had been nursing all summer trying to get used to the awful taste so that she could drink bourbon straight like an adult, and she had spent that evening and night learning spells and potion to give to Harry Potter in order to get him back into her life.

And she got a little drunk while doing it, but by morning she had remembered the spells she had needed and she had schemed.

Next time she heard about Ron getting together with his girlfriend and Harry Potter Ginny muscled in on their day out. Which Ron was annoyed by because Ginny had been a right terror ever since coming home and had made their mum cry a few times, and he had dared act all “protective big brother” with her because he was worried Harry Potter would reject her and in response she hexed him for treating her like a baby.

But she stubbornly stayed with them. All day. She doesn’t recall the exact details, mostly because Ginny herself had taken a little something-something for liquid courage before doing this, but it had worked a treat. She finally found her opening, she took it, dosed Harry Potter with three drops and he fell back in love with her and gladly took her back the moment she asked him out.

She was sixteen and she would be turning seventeen the next month, and she had her boyfriend back. Not of his own free will but she had told herself that she just had to dose him the once and Harry Potter would never have to know because their love was the stuff of legends and she’d never have to dose him ever again.

This was a stupid delusion. Because once the potion wore off a little Ron and Hermione had convinced Harry that he didn’t have time for her, he agreed, told her, and she had to dose him three more times before the summer ended. Then Ron was going off to Aurar training and Ginny and Hermione were going back to Hogwarts.

Good news for her teenaged self, and bad news for Harry, was that he had made Madam Pomphrey his primary medical person and because he was still very ill and recovering from nearly dying most of his life, he would be visiting Hogwarts regularly for check-ups. All Ginny had to do, whenever Harry Potter was pulling away from her (which had been every time the potion and spells wore off even a little bit), was to time things so that he’d be bewitched or dosed only after his medical appointments so that Pomphrey would never know and-…

Like what was stated before: Ginny as a teenager had no excuses for what she had done. As an adult looking back it feels as if a stranger had possessed her body during that time, Ginny didn’t even recognize herself.

People do change, sometime for the better sometime for worse, you hear people sometimes say that they weren’t a good person in the past, but that is in abstract terms. For a reason, if normal well-adjusted people found out just how bad their friends acted in their past then… they wouldn’t be friends anymore. This especially applies to alcoholics and drug addicts who are already out of their minds on a good day.

She is… not very proud of how she treated Harry, or anyone during that repeated sixth year. She had been angry, violent, anti-social to an alarming degree… and drunk. She lost a lot of friends and she would have lost Harry too if not for the spells and potions. She can only recall about… half… maybe less of that year though. Since she felt so suffocated that she was drunk most of the time she wasn’t in classes.

Harry, being a concerned _good_ boyfriend, who deserved far better than what she had been putting him through, even when he was heavily potioned and covered in bewitchments up to his eyeballs, he still had enough willpower to tell Hermione about the drinking and… Ginny is pretty sure she’s the reason why Ron and Hermione broke up and didn’t speak to each other anymore. Because Hermione was confronting Ginny and searching through her things and had found the bottle of illegal potion before Ginny managed to hex her into the wall and Ginny had managed to get to Ron before Hermione could. Ginny had claimed… she couldn’t really remember exactly. But it might have been the thing to get Ron angry enough to dump Hermione and not speak to her, so he refused to so much as listen when Hermione tried to contact him, and the rest of the family followed suit after he told them what Ginny had told him that she said Hermione had done.

…That she couldn’t remember saying to him.

Sometimes looking back… Ginny wondered if Ron had a lack of sense of smell or if he was just stupid because Ginny was pretty sure she had reeked of booze that faithful Hogsmeade weekend.

After that Hermione was too heartbroken over Ron to do much of anything but keep her grades up.

And try to protect Harry. Hermione interfered lots when Harry was around and to Ginny’s horror she had spent most of her repeated sixth year not even seeing Harry Potter than actually being with Harry Potter and because McGonagall was living under the same roof as Ginny she was not fooled by Ginny pointing fingers at Hermione to try to get the older girl out of the way.

Ginny and her own relationship with Harry seemed to be more off than on even when they weren’t broken up, with her being in Hogwarts and Harry being so busy, Hermione interfering, and also with Harry being so ill that he kept putting off his Aurar training. He was in the school infirmary a lot, and as time wore on Ginny had to be extra careful not to dose him not before but after his appointments with Pomphrey and even then it had to be after appointments that would not be followed up in a day or two by another appointment. It was a complicated schedule that Ginny had to balance. Amazing that she had managed it at all given she doesn’t remember most of it and her grades had been so low she’d been in detention a lot.

Class, Quidditch practice, and detentions were the only times she remembered being completely sober. Generally with a migraine but still.

Perhaps she was a functioning alcoholic, or she had been cashing in all of her lifetime supply of luck. It certainly was pity and being sober at the right times of the day that prevented the teachers from holding an intervention she knew that much. Since she clearly did not want to be there and suffered horrible flashbacks by just walking down certain hallways.

Like always, when given the choice between doing the right thing and pretending nothing was wrong…

Actually, Ginny knows exactly why she had gotten away with that shite for longer than if she had been in any other school on the planet.

Even then with all of that effort and sheer luck it felt as if they were broken up more than they were together since some days Ginny overstepped and took her anger out on Harry and he… just said they were done and walked away, not seeing her again until sometimes weeks later. After a while of this Ginny actually feared that she would lose him if she didn’t find a way to bind him to her so she resolved herself to be his first time. Then maybe they’d get out of their funk and he’d let her stay with him and they’d have lots of sex and get married and she’d not have to see the inside of Hogwarts and remember the horrors that had happened there ever again!

This was Ginny’s mantra at the time. Because if she did not repeat this to herself constantly she would fall apart because she was in Hogwarts, taking classes, as if nothing fucking had happened there and no one had died and had their guts and other bodily insides strewn about all over painting the walls! Most of the seats in the Great Hall were empty! The muggleborns did not return, nor did many of the half-bloods! Hogwarts the year and a half she had attended was even more Pureblooded in population than it had been when Voldemort had taken over!

Ginny in that moment needed a fucking miracle, because she was falling apart at the seams and in her mind her only plausible cure for the screaming inside of her head was for Harry’s love to fix her! She needed to fuck him until she forgot everything, she needed to convince him to get her the hell out of there, she needed him to give her some kind of happy ending before she drove herself utterly and completely mad!

Harry wasn’t too thrilled about the proposition of sex. Saying that he was too ill for that kind of thing or whatever Ginny wasn’t listening.

She should have, because Harry was not just making up excuses. He had legitimately been sick. Most of their dates ended halfway because he fell asleep, or he had to cancel because he was in too much pain to get out of bed and on his worst weeks he had to stay at the Burrow and have mum and dad look after him because he was too terrified of collapsing and not being able to get back up without help.

Ginny, unfortunately for Harry, was a stupid-ass teenager, so she wasn’t having it and had attempted to do as her book said and use her womanly wiles to snog and grope him until he was hard the next time she caught him alone and dragged him into an unused classroom.

It didn’t work. Harry did not get hard, he just sort of sat there… not really doing anything but looking at her with scared confusion, as if he didn’t know what the hell she was doing.

It irritated her, and it irritated her further when she got his shirt off and the body underneath had been…

Disappointing.

Before the war Ginny knew, or at least she had heard rumors from other girls she did not actually _know_ , that Harry Potter had been ripped with lean muscles and broad shoulders, and had… well looked like a man. The Harry she had seen beneath her had been thin, and delicate with hips curvier than hers. Like a skinny girl.

Very skinny, she could see his ribs, and his collarbones were sticking out like they were trying to escape. Very clearly all of the stress was not helping his recovery at all and if she had been in her right mind she would have broken up with him on the spot and ordered him to forget Aurar training and instead spend a year at the Burrow doing nothing but sleeping and eating mum’s cooking.

She had instead said something insensitive, because she had been expecting to shag the hot boy of her dreams, not an ill person. So he pushed her off and didn’t speak to her for a month. She had to ask a favor from Ron to get him back so she could dose him in the usual way but nothing was the same after that.

After that day Harry seemed to close himself off completely from her, even with the aid of the potions. What she had said and done to him on that day had been enough that not even amortentia had been enough for him to ever act the same. At this point Ginny would have normally given up, but the only times she was able to sleep in her dorm bed without dreaming of a Carrow trying to slither in with her was when she had something to drink or passed out from exhaustion after running herself into the ground with broom flying practice.

She _needed_ out.

And he was her ticket.

She scoured her book for answers and had tried to covertly put charmed spells over Harry to get him to relax, or at least excited. He hated taking off his clothes in front of her and… when she was irritated she didn’t exactly help things because she just… could not help but comment over the change his body had made. Like… he spent ages running around in the woods, how could he not be completely ripped by now? He said it was malnutrition but Ginny just could not get over how… effeminate Harry was becoming under his clothes. How girly he started to look.

How he was even starting to act like some weak little simpering chit, the same kind of weakling girl Ginny made fun of ruthlessly in her repeated sixth year because she had no patience for soft things. Not when she had fought a war and was so angry all of the time. No, she was an adult, or so she had told herself, and not a stupid girly girl. Like Lavender and Hermione sometimes were, to Ginny’s mind at the time at any rate.

They had just survived a war and Harry was… not the man she was expecting to come out of it. Still the same Harry as before but… not like his father’s statue or his father’s photographs at all!

She should have let him go, but she needed him to get her out and her pride chafed that Harry Potter was the one to always walk away from her. She had even had to recruit Ron to get him to talk with her again so that she could dose Harry’s tea and restart their relationship after that disastrous first attempt at sex.

There had only been a few more attempts at sex after that one disastrous day, but she thinks she must have put him off beyond repair because one time she skipped class and tried to surprise him by appearing before him fully naked in the boy’s showers after his usual Wednesday mid-morning broom flying session in the pitch for the sake of keeping up his health, and he shrank away from her. He had looked horrified and downright offended by the lack of clothes on her body!

Granted, he didn’t look as hot fully naked as she had hoped he’d be and it clearly showed on her face because he had hissed at her about it, serpentine voice and all. He was so pissed at her for surprising him without warning that he conjured a shield to keep her at bay while they fought about her commenting a lot about how his body repulsed her and he left after he had dressed and it took another intervention from Ron to get Harry back again for her to give him a dose in his tea to restart their relationship again!

The last time they attempted to have sex Ginny had brewed him a stimulant potion her trusty book had prescribed, and while Harry stubbornly refused at first, eventually she wore him down and he had taken it…

Only to have a bad reaction to the potion where he said his skin felt as if it were crawling with pins and it hurt him to be touched, he also had a horrific headache and he ended up staggering off to the infirmary to spend the night he was so sick.

Honestly, buy that point Ginny had felt relieved, horrified that she had poisoned Harry, worried that without taking his virginity she’d have nothing binding him to her, but relieved. She didn’t even drink the last bottle she had stolen from McGonagall’s office that night. Because if she were being perfectly honest she wasn’t… too keen on giving it a go in the first place. Not with him looking like that, being so weakened that he couldn’t pick her up anymore and him being so tired that he didn’t seem as if he had the energy to bugger her in the ways she had thought she deserved.

His thoughts and feelings didn’t play very much into it of course. If she had actually loved him it wouldn’t have mattered, she would have been gentle with him, if she had loved him for the person he was outside of his reputation…

Well, there was no use laminating what she would have done if she had been dating him at age twenty-three instead of seventeen. At twenty-three she would have treated him kinder, been softer, been perfectly fine with only cuddling him because she would have been relieved he was still alive and that would have been enough.

But she hadn’t in love with Harry at that point, not at age seventeen, or even at age sixteen, fifteen, or all the way back to when she had been seven years of age. She had been in love with the idea of being with The Harry Potter Boy-Who-Lived Savior of their world.

Later, at eighteen, she would fall in love with him, for real, but by then he was already lost to her.

Long… long lost to her.

But at the age of seventeen she had eyed how Hermione had sat by his bedside in the school infirmary, lecturing him for taking the potion in the first place and Ginny had felt… as if she had fulfilled a sort of requirement. She had tried to turn Harry Potter into a man, and her womanly wiles were not enough.

It wasn’t her fault.

She would not lose him because he did not have enough stamina to keep it up.

No one would be able to take him away from her. For he had nothing to give.

And Ginny was the only one, she had told herself at the time, filled with spite and pity, she had told herself that she was the only one who would have him.

They never tried to have sex again after that.

More specifically she never tried.

Things had been looking up though! As the month of May was ending and summer on the horizon all of that work she put into doing flying practice in order to keep her head from remembering that she was trapped in Hogwarts, the war, her disastrous social life, all of it had paid off for Ginny! The Hollyhead Harpies offered her a contract for the next spring in May!

Which Ginny had accepted and Harry had congratulated her with a nice dinner that was actually decently bearable and it was nice to actually _talk_ about something in a comfortable way for once. Ginny thinks that particular date was the first real date they had since the war ended without there being awkward tension or Harry being annoyingly girly about bringing her flowers or gushing over how good the food tasted. Ginny didn’t even get drunk to make it through the evening!

They had two more dates like that over the summer, and Ginny didn’t have a single drop of alcohol or even had to dose Harry even once!

Ginny had a way out, a light at the tunnel to the suffocating restrictions that had plagued her the previous year! She had begun acting like an actual, functioning, human person!

…Until Ginny told her mum about the contract and everything went to shit because mum was all like _“when are you going to get married”_ and _“shouldn’t you be thinking about settling down and giving me grandbabies?”_

Which reminded Ginny of why she had not told anyone but Harry about the good news for so long. And she instantly regretted not keeping it to herself for the rest of forever.

Ginny loved her family, she really did, still does, but… to put it mildly that had been the exact wrong thing to say, and because they were still Purebloods despite everything, her parents… really could not comprehend why she had exploded on them like she had for making what would have normally have been an innocent comment.

This led to Ginny not speaking to her mum and dad at all for the rest of the summer and invading Ron’s apartment until he started getting on her case about “how her having a career wouldn’t be fair on Harry” and a whole lot of drivel about babies and how he blamed Hermione being “too much of a know-it-all” and that was why they hadn’t worked out. So early in the morning before she had to go back to school she had packed up her stuff and left at two in the morning while Ron was still asleep.

Ginny refused to let her family see her off, they had come but they couldn’t find her because she had arrived so early that she had been able to board the Hogwarts Express without them seeing her.

Between Ron, her mum, and everybody she had made enemies with in the previous year, her snapping point had been an off-hand comment made by someone on the Hogwarts Express calling her Mrs. Harry Potter.

Not Ginny Potter. Not Weasley, or Ginny, or even Ginevra.

It was an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. The same feeling she drowned in at Ministry events when she was nothing but Harry’s arm candy “of proper breeding stock” but nothing more than a pretty face and a womb!

Not even a brain. Just… a womb waiting to be filled.

Not even Ginny. She wasn’t even called by her own name _shedidn’thavea **name** anymor-!_

She punched the kid in the eye when she asked what was wrong and stormed off to a different, empty compartment, where she dug into her booze stash and took a fortifying swig, or eleven, just to steady her nerves. Then, sneaking off like a scolded cat when she arrived at school, because Luna had dropped her usual dreamy expression and eyed Ginny with a clear, disconcertingly _sane_ , sharp look.

It had been downright spooky that look. One of the most terrifying looks Ginny had ever seen directed at her, and that was saying something because until that moment Ginny had thought only her mother could pull off the scariest of scary looks.

Admittedly Ginny hadn’t really spoken to Luna much recently. Not after Nev saw Ginny make Harry run off crying early last March and Ginny had tried, but failed, to hex Luna for scolding her in a very Luna-like manner. In fact Ginny had landed on her face. Luna had kicked her ass with minimal effort and with barely even having to use her wand. Ginny had been in pain on the ground and Luna had been as calm as a cucumber.

She had also been looking at Ginny with those I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed looks ever since. Which was somehow worse than if Luna had been outright angry with her like Hermione had been.

This was how she missed the greeting feast and how McGonagall found her getting absolutely smashed in some far off abandoned corner that no one (save for Luna) would have thought to look for her and giving Ginny detention for a month.

Which led to Harry- because he was being such a _girl_ at the time (actually he was just being a really good boyfriend trying to save her life) and he was “scared for her” and all that whinging namby-pamby bollocks- telling mum about her drinking habit! Mum then told McGonagall and after searching her things they found all of her stash of booze. Thankfully they didn’t look too closely at her perfume bottles that she kept Harry’s potion in, but after that day her life went straight to hell to put it lightly.

She had been furious.

She also heard from McGonagall all about how Harry was so scared for her, and how her former friends were worried, and how she hadn’t spoken to mum in ages and that she was being given even more detention and being watched from now on.

So she hunted Harry down by escaping school via the secret passage (because the teachers were bollocks at their jobs like always) and hexed him hard for good measure. He didn’t even see her coming.

He walked out. Didn’t say a word after picking himself back up, tears in his eyes in the face of her screeching at him while people held her back from laying into him again.

He did not even utter a whimper. Just limped away without a backward glance. Stayed away without speaking a word to her for almost two whole months before Ginny was able to get him to sit down with her at the beginning of November and drink her special tea and convinced him to get a flat in Hogsmeade because she was dropping out and devoting her time to training until next summer when she could finally be free of people treating her like a kid!

He agreed that getting away was probably a good idea, maybe she should think about getting herself her own apartment since she clearly wasn’t happy with Harry. Clearly did not want to be known only as Harry’s girl. And Harry was thinking about moving out of the country anyway since he was tired and now that the trials were over he just wanted to go off and find out who he was outside of hunting down dark wizards.

Like he was destined to do. Like how Dumbledore had always said he was supposed to do.

Which spooked Ginny. The potion was supposed to remind Harry that he loved her.

He was thinking about throwing everything he was supposed to be away.

So she upped his dose. Convinced him not to go through with his stupid plan, and get them that flat.

Thus began Ginny’s lowest point. She had already hit rock bottom but she was stubbornly digging herself a hole to get even lower. A horrible dark mood overcoming her at the expense of everyone around her.

Ginny’s whole life was spinning out of control so she took the initiative to keep it held together! First with Harry because if she lost Harry then her life would be made utter hell because no one would let her move on from not getting hitched to The Fucking Savior. It was because he couldn’t managed his own life right that she was burdened with having to manage it for him, that was the source of her main problems and if they lived together then she’d be able to help him properly until he got over being so… cowardly, girly, just generally willing to throw his life away all because he still wasn’t over what happened to him when he was a kid!

The war was over for fucks sake! She moved on! It wasn’t fucking hard!

Of course she had been ignoring the fact that she hadn’t been moving on but at the time she had just turned eighteen and her family had broken her heart by not only **_not_** supporting her career choice but also making her feel unloved and cheap because all they could talk about was either grandbabies or awkwardly saying they felt sorry for Harry because Harry wouldn’t be getting any if Ginny had a career.

Oh, if only Ronald knew the full truth…

Second, fuck school. She didn’t need to stay in school. School was for kids and she was an adult! She wasn’t taking crap from her own family let alone some strangers who weren’t even family. She hadn’t wanted to go back anyway! Without Harry there to try to impress her school work was even more boring and unbearable than she had remembered it being!

Third, avoid her mother and her stupid brothers because they clearly only cared about her getting married and providing grandchildren before she was even eighteen! Now that she was eighteen and a full year into adulthood she was allowed to have at least a few years of doing something interesting before popping out Potter heirs! _Merlin’s ballcocks!_

Also, if she moved in with Harry then she could do all the adult things she couldn’t get away with at home or at school. She had gotten a small taste back when she’d hidden out in Ron’s apartment over the summer, was able to go out to muggle clubs and hang out with interesting people, she hadn’t had to bathe or brush her teeth and she could eat dessert for breakfast! There was no curfew!

She was eighteen and could buy booze from muggle shops!

Which was important.

Alcohol was the only thing that really made things bearable really. Muted things to make them seem less… in focus.

Made being Mrs. Harry Potter bearable.

Made moving in with Harry in mid-December bearable.

Because it was one hell of a nightmare when she was sober. Harry was high maintenance and a winging coward who didn’t understand what was good for him and Ginny had to work overtime just to keep him going. Doing what he was supposed to be doing instead of going off and “finding himself” or whatever pathetic crap he kept coming up with.

He couldn’t even get it up for a proper shag!

What was worse though was that Ginny had to keep Harry on the right path while also having to deal with other people’s unfair expectations of herself. The entire fate of the Potter line rested upon Ginny’s shoulders and she was expected to sacrifice everything in her life for it AND THE BOY WONDER COULDN’T EVEN GET IT UP!

Harry tried to stop her from drinking though. Said he was “worried sick” and all that tosh, when in reality she didn’t have a problem at all. He was the one with a problem. Probably something stupid having to do with it not being ladylike.

It had been annoying before but when they moved in together his attitude was unbearable.

Moving in together, would later prove to have been a mistake, she had thought at the time that maybe they just weren’t ready or they should have waited until Harry had recovered enough from being so malnourished that he couldn’t shag her. That first night had been boring and unbearable, he kissed her but not with the unrestrained passion she always wanted from him but never got. He kissed her the same way old people do when they can’t have sex anymore without breaking a hip: bland and short.

He wanted to cuddle. Ginny hated cuddling after the war had ended. She didn’t really know what to do with herself and it felt suffocating. It was strange, because before, in those brief few weeks they had started dating when she had been fifteen and everything was right with the world, she rather liked Harry being all sweet and holding her, but now the only time she wanted him near her was to passionately shag her, she was very interested in the idea of the shagging part… yet she just… really got annoyed by the touchy feely almost brotherly hugs Harry tried to give her. It felt… well wrong. They had just won a war not even two years ago! Why they were still clothed and not ravaging each other in victory even all of these months later just-…???

Sleeping in the same bed as him was just depressing, he hadn’t gained back any muscle in the right places at all, and when he slept with his back to her (which was often) it looked like she were sleeping next to a _girl_. A really, girly, girl.

…Harry had too many curves for a proper bloke. She was fine with him while clothed in robes specially tailored to make him look more manly, if a bit on the short side, but in his pajamas…

His arse was better looking than hers. That is if he were a girl.

He had a lot of nightmares, silent ones though, the sort where he’d jerk awake suddenly covered in a cold sweat and it kind of spooked Ginny how he barely made a sound. Ginny’s own nightmares had her yelling herself awake kicking and punching, and while she did appreciate how concerned Harry could be for her, she often just wanted to be left alone after a nightmare and not be touched, like, at all. They eventually had to split the bed with a shield charm because Harry kept getting kicked or punched by her and she really wasn’t always up for being all maternal and shite after he jolted up in a cold sweat. Sometimes she could, but most of the time she just wanted to try to sleep and not deal with him.

Hell! When he slept while facing her he looked like a girl! Ginny knew that malnutrition came with bodily changes but Harry was supposed to look more like his father not… his mum! He was supposed to be all chiseled and rugged and when she kissed him it was supposed to be hot like his father! Not give her the impression she was kissing _Lily_ Potter. It was already weird enough when people said that Ginny looked like his mum!!

He was also so _oversensitive_ , and… just like a girl but with bollocks! Ginny could barely walk two feet without Harry doing something that reminded her of _her own_ mum. He acted _a_ _lot_ like her mum! Nagging Ginny, telling Ginny to pick up after herself, berating Ginny for not helping out with dinner, telling Ginny not to eat junk food all day, brush her teeth, that she couldn’t go days at a time without bathing, saying that he wasn’t going to foot the bill for her booze habit and she would have to get a job and support it herself, and to pretty much act as if she wasn’t finally an adult with a rich boyfriend who was now free to live the way she had always wanted to now she didn’t have mum or McGonagall breathing down her neck.

She left home and school to get away from all of that, only for Harry to be just as insufferably annoying!

What was the point of being an adult if she couldn’t be shagged all day and not have to take a shower or brush her teeth if she didn’t want to? It was honestly as if she were dating a girl!

The only thing they agreed on was that she should still take up the job offer to become a beater for the Hollyhead Harpies next season. Only Harry. Only _he_ seemed to be the one person in the _whole_ family who wanted her to have some time to do stuff for herself before she started popping out babies and to wait to get married until a time when they both were so monstrously busy and they could actually enjoy the honeymoon… have a honeymoon.

Suffer though the honeymoon.

Ginny was at a point, somewhere after the first week of living with one another where she actually didn’t really want to shag Harry anymore. Like at all.

Or ever.

An amazing feat since she had spent so much time and effort trying to get him alone to do just that, she had fantasized about him during the war and that helped keep her going, but after that first week of living together she had to stop and really think hard about when the last time was that she had wanted to shag him because she had been so in love with him she couldn’t stand it and when it had become… just a thing, a habit really, to bemoan that she wasn’t getting any.

Somewhere… sometime in the Spring of her repeated sixth year she had stopped having fantasies about him sweeping off her feet. Disabused of the idea after he had been unable to get it up and had shied away at the sight of her and had that allergic reaction to the stamina potion…

She had figured he’d be one of those touchy feely crying types anyway. She had been warned about those sorts at her usual watering hole. Ginny didn’t think she’d ever be drunk enough to deal with that. Ginny wasn’t some _girly-girl_ bint who got off on stupid girly shit like that. A man crying during sex? Ha! Pathetic. Ginny survived a war, she was a woman with needs!

Well… admittedly she never had sex but all the books she’d read and the people she talked to made it sound as if only weaklings and stupid girls were into the whole “tenderness” bit. Rough and passionate sounded like just the thing for her.

Oh Merlin how Ginny had loathed the thought of how Harry was going to be like when it came time to actually plan the wedding. With the way he was acting it would be filled with bows and flowers up to the rafters! He and her mum would be thick as thieves and it would be _fucking hell_.

If anything Harry pushed her to drink even more just to make putting up with his constant nagging unmanly attitude.

She was stuck with him though. No escape.

Or at least that was how it had felt like at the time. In reality she knew she could have broken up with him a long time ago. Should have broken up with him or let him leave her. Should have stopped it all in that second after the first week of living together and she had said to herself “The fuck is this going to be my whole life?”

She should have broken up with him and apologized for being an utter arse about… everything.

In that moment, after their first week, and she being actually sober for once, Ginny had a small moment of clarity.

After all, Harry was only still with her because she dosed him, did she really want to stay with someone who required a potion and charms to keep his flighty arse from… leaving?

Did Harry even want to be with her anymore? Clearly he cared about her, but… if given a choice would he stay without a potion keeping him there?

What would become of her if she couldn’t keep Potter? Her whole family and everyone in the magical world would make her life utter hell!

Plus she still love Harry didn’t she? Loved him enough to keep him from completely fucking up his life!

She still… loved him right?

This was… supposed to be a dream come true.

She worked so hard to get him to notice her, be worthy of him, to be his girlfriend.

All of her fantasies since she had been a child, since before she even met Harry Potter in person.

Who was she if she wasn’t going to be Mrs. Harry Potter?

She didn’t even need a wand. She just held out her hand and a full bottle hit her palm and opened up through sheer power of her will. Then a second one smacked into the grip of her other hand because she had not wanted to be sober to answer that question!

_“Ginny, love, are you alright-? Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking again!”_

She tried using maybe a sprinkle of potion to just get him to leave her alone, but that only served to make things worse! Because apparently he “loved her too much to see her die of alcohol poisoning” or some delusional bollocks.

Harry crossed a line though.

Not really, since he was basically saving her life, but at the time it had felt like an unfounded action for him to take. So her perspective was distinctly unappreciative of just how much he had cared about her.

Almost, not quite, but almost a month after moving in with one another Harry had tattled to her brothers, again, about Ginny daring to be _unladylike_ and _liked to drink alcohol like the man he never was_ now that she was _old enough to drink it_!

She had been told off by Ron (which was stupid seeing as how he and Harry weren’t talking to each other and therefore Ron shouldn’t even care about Harry anymore) for “making Harry worry” then on the very same day she came home to their flat to find that he also took the trouble to get rid of every single blessed bottle of her booze in the entire place!

Naturally she hexed him, stole his wallet and went out to get sloshed just to prove that he wasn’t the boss of her.

No one would be the boss of her.

She fought in a fucking war! Her family and boyfriend abandoned her for dead! They didn’t get to tell her what to do or that she should stop being **_angry!_**

It was while she was pissed off and drunk that she came up with the idea to teach Harry a lesson by messing with his stuff to show him how it felt. It wasn’t going to be anything outrageously horrible, or anything that couldn’t be fixed with a simple repairing spell. Just… something to prove a point.

She hadn’t really thought it through though. Wasn’t sure exactly what messing with his stuff entailed other than randomly breaking things. Didn’t think about what she would do if she ran into Harry.

But she did use Harry’s money to buy a full bottle of something or other for the road, and it was a lovely day out with the sun shining through the clouds for once, Ginny distinctly remembers planning on going out to search for the greasiest fish and chips she could find for lunch after she was done.

She had stumbled up to their flat… and that was about the time she started blacking out, because she only half remembers Harry trying to take the bottle out of her hands while she was taking a swig and the next coherent thought she had was waking up on a muggle park bench with a broken top half of a vodka bottle in one hand and her wand in the other. Her mouth tasted as if something had crawled up and died inside of it, her stomach evacuated itself the moment she tried to move, and there were ants trying to crawl into her nose… maybe she also might have soiled herself but a quick spell took care of that so she pretended it never happened.

The only saving grace she had was that it was almost three in the morning and still dark out. Too cold and wet for anybody but the ants and those drunk enough for the fire whiskey to warm her blood to be out and about. She had been able to summon a makeshift fountain of water from her wand in order to hydrate herself for the excruciating task of popping to the apparition point close to her flat and slowly making her way up the stairs.

When she came back to the flat everything had been cleaned, as if nothing had happened.

Save for a dark rusty stain on the carpet.

Ginny didn’t remember how it had gotten there.

She thought long and hard about it, struggling through the pain of her hangover, trying to piece together what she had done yesterday.

She only then noticed that all of Harry’s things were gone.

She finds out a while later, from a howler Hermione sent her, that while she had been drunk she had beaten and hexed Harry so bad with the bottle that not even his magic had been able to fully protect him and she broke his ribs, cutting him up with broken glass bad enough that Ron thought she had killed him.

…Also apparently she had hexed Ron on her way back down and he had to miss work because walking really hurt him at the moment. They weren’t pressing charges but Hermione had promised that she’d maul Ginny with her bare hands if she so much as stepped a toe near either of them.

Not that Ginny had been in much of a frame of mind to be worried about Hermione’s threat. It was a worry at the back of her mind but for that moment Ginny had bigger problems.

Ginny had just hurt her brother and beaten Harry Potter, the man she was in love with, the man she always wanted to marry, so badly that there was a stain on the floor.

She hurt people she loved.

She hurt her family.

All of her resentment for all of them evaporated in that moment.

The ah-ha moment that most former alcoholics and addicts talk about having? Well Ginny’s had been for of a ‘what the fuck have I done?’ kind of moment.

This was also that moment where it clicked in Ginny’s head that Harry… was only mortal. She could have killed him and he would have been dead and just like the bodies littering the battlefield in the ruins of Hogwarts castle he would not have woken up. He wasn’t a mythical figure who could take whatever punishment she put him through, he was sick, weakened, and…

He loved her.

He supported her in in life choices when no one else could. He tried to take care of her the best he was able even when she didn’t raise a finger to do the same. He… had been the adult of the relationship.

And now he was gone.

And she missed him like there was a hole in her heart.

Ginny remembers pressing both hands to Harry’s dried blood and tried to remember how badly she had hurt Harry. Where he had bled out.

This was her ‘oh shit’ moment.

It was very odd because before she felt pretty repulsed by Harry’s body before, but in that moment her brain just… flipped some kind of switch and suddenly Harry didn’t seem ugly enough to have deserved being treated like this! Yeah, she had been very disappointed because he wasn’t all chiseled and manly like the photos of his father, but Harry had been ill! Harry…

Oh Merlin Harry was still recovering from the war! His rate of healing could be set back months and it was all her fault!

She had beaten _The Savior_ bloody all because she wanted a shag and a drink and now he must think she was a complete psycho!

It felt rather cruel that this was the _only time_ Ginny had first realized that she had just been irrationally repulsed by Harry’s body was because he was too sick to be the strapping hero Ginny had dreamed about and had other more important things to deal with other than her whinging about him not shagging her and not being as fit as his father-

Ooh, Ginny had to cringe at that. She had been drunk when she had said it-

-And she also thinks she compared herself to his mum at some point-

-Oh! And she thinks she said that he could never make her happy and that he-

…She recalled a lot of things but nothing past flashes of him trying to get the bottle out of her hands.

Admittedly the whole thing had been a bad idea, she really should have-… not gone out… drinking.

Not stolen Harry’s wallet either.

Not… done a lot of things.

She was worried, she had not had the right but as the days went by and he didn’t come back, she was terrified. What if she had punctured his lung, what if he had to have a transfusion, did she only hit him with the bottle or did she try to boil his blood just as she had planned to do to Percy before-

Ginny threw up the first time she had that particular nightmare. Of murdering Harry, killing her family, her friends…

She had felt pretty fucking horrible.

Oddly, she had managed to stay sober throughout this whole experience of not knowing where Harry was. She didn’t even look at a bottle when the only sign she got that he was still alive was when he had sent her back a box of some of his stuff. The letter he had written was that all of it was things that either she had given him or things he had bought only because she said he had to have it, and he was now returning everything because he wanted her out of his life. For good this time.

She had cried her eyes out but she did not even think to take a drink of anything but the last of the orange juice.

Hindsight had been a bitch, and Ginny really should have left it all alone after this.

But in hindsight Ginny realized that Harry had actually been a model boyfriend to her even when she had been at her worst. That he had been sweet and caring and…

She did actually love him. Somewhere along the way, she had fallen for him despite the twisted nature of their relationship. If she allowed herself to soften up a little, realized how lonely it was without him. She could see that maybe… maybe…

It had taken… a very long time for her to find where Harry was. Weeks of nobody telling her where he was and of her trying to dodge her mum who had been on a bloody warpath and even though they had apparently decided to keep the whole almost murdering Harry and her older brother a secret, all of Hogsmeade soon grew terrified of Molly Weasley nee Prewett and everyone kept asking her what in Merlin’s name had she done to make the woman so angry?

Finally, she had convinced Ron to let Harry be a man and break up with her to her face. Or at least talk things out! They had agreed to meet in muggle Victoria Park in Glasgow. A public place where they would sit, eat, drink “tea”, and have a serious discussion about their relationship.

Harry was wearing a shirt and tight jeans that showed off his curves as if he were shoving his unmanly body in Ginny’s face, and while Harry still looked like Harry… he looked… both younger and older. Like he was fourteen-yet-not because he also seemed to look really mature at the same time? If that made any sense?

He was very pretty though. Not necessarily manly handsome, but beautiful handsome. Especially since he must have been spending time outdoors because his skin had darkened into a very becoming shade of brown.

Exotic, was what came to Ginny’s mind. Now that she wasn’t looking at him and expecting to see the son of James Potter and Harry Potter the strapping manly man hero, Ginny could actually see herself growing used to Harry’s changing body. It wasn’t his fault that he had gotten ill, and… he actually looked pretty good all things considered. It was a shock because before she had been too stubborn, sulking into a bottle over the fact that she hadn’t gotten what had been advertised to her since she’d been a kid, to properly _look_ at Harry with and open mind.

When she saw Harry, without expecting to see something else… he actually looked good. If she met him in a bar and had not known who he was she would have checked him out. If she had been single she could see herself flirting with him and asking him to take her home.

She had been prepared to take things slower this time, to get to know Harry properly, and to win back his trust. She had been so lonely and so sorry for herself without him that she had not wanted to lose Harry!

Who was, sadly enough at the time, her only friend and family who would still talk to her. She had actually thought that things would finally, _finally_ be different!

To be fair, it had been different.

That time the potion didn’t work.

No matter how much she poured into his tea, no matter how much she covertly charmed him, no amount was enough! He insisted he loved her but couldn’t be with her because he made her so miserable! Blaming himself for her rage and her alcoholism and sobbing so hard she couldn’t make out any words at a certain point!

She didn’t know what to do! Muggles were staring openly at them and when she tried to snap at Harry they yelled at her to leave him alone.

Well they were yelling at Ginny to “leave that _innocent girl_ alone” because Harry’s voice had pitched up higher while he’d been crying and he _sounded like a fucking genuine woman!_

Which had thrown Ginny for a loop. Yes, Harry had cried in front of her before, mostly because she caused him so much pain that he was reduced to tears from her hexing him, but he had never spoken a word when he was upset or in tears.

And now Ginny knew why.

Then he bolted off in tears yelling that he was sorry that he was incapable of ever making Ginny happy, and he was _fucking too fast for an ill person_! Ginny hadn’t been able to catch him before he disappeared behind a bloody _tree-that-wasn’t-even-an-apparition-point-what-the-actual-fuck!_

So Ginny had to make her way all the way to the other side of Victoria Park and had to dodge a pair of pissed twelve-year-old muggle schoolgirls calling her “the mean old bitch” and were surprisingly tenacious little cunts, if it hadn’t been her they had been after Ginny would have been _impressed_ in a positive sort of way. Instead of a _‘sweet Godric one of them has picked up a tree branch and the bitch looked mean enough to use it!’_

Finally, she made it back to the magical world in one piece.

Only to hear a rumor at the Hogshead that Draco Malfoy was going through a right fit yelling about how he found Harry Potter bleeding and running away from some crazed fan who had pumped him full of some kind of poison because she couldn’t take no for an answer.

And Ginny was positive Harry had told Malfoy _exactly who had dosed him_ because when Ginny raced to Hogwarts to try to… do something… explain herself to Harry… make sure she hadn’t accidentally killed him, Malfoy spotted her running up to the gates, shouted “YOU!” and proceeded to chase after her to the nearest apparition point where she had to jump around to two more apparating points before she was able to shake him. Which had been utter bullshite because _since when had HE ever cared about Harry Potter?_

Getting back to the flat Ginny, being both shaken, and not knowing what else to do, spent all night writing Harry a letter explaining herself. It took ten whole drafts before she finally managed to get something that felt just about right enough through a haze of exhaustion to risk sneaking out, hiring an owl from the local Hogsmeade mailing office, and sneaking back inside her flat so no one would see her.

Harry hadn’t brought Hedwig with him to the flat, at the time citing that Andromeda needed her more now that she had a baby to raise, but in reality Ginny knew that Hedwig _hated_ Ginny with malicious intent and all the malice an owl could summon up for anyone.

The only sleep she got the whole next week was when she passed out from exhaustion. She had to use her broom to exit the apartment through the window and for a little while she had to use Harry’s muggle credit to check into a motel to hide from her own family who were not only trying to find her, but they had roped in Bill to strip off the wards to the flat so that they could break in.

Joke was on them! Because before she left Ginny had snuck out to the muggle hardware store and spent a good long while supergluing, taping, nailing, and plastering the front door shut! Can’t open the front door when it has been turned into another part of the wall! HAHA!

Harry never wrote back.

Also, they were never getting the deposit back for the flat.

People sent her things. Mostly howlers that she destroyed before they could howl at her. Charlie’s burst into flame and she had to move motels because it set off some kind of muggle alarm and it freaked her out.

But none were from Harry.

She checked. None were in his handwriting.

It was Percy, the brother she had once almost shot a dark curse at to boil his blood and kill him without a second thought, the one who had been unaware of Ginny dreaming of slashing his throat while he slept until the day it came out that he had been on their side all along. That he had sacrificed being with his family in order to protect his family. That brother had been the one to find her.

Percy had found her, and he had looked livid.

Which, given that she had been on the run from her family since January, she had already been expecting.

What she had not been expecting was that he had read her very personal letter to Harry, and he was there to take her by force into custody because she had broken _all of the laws she had not known had existed_ and as far as he had been concerned the only two places in the world for her at that very moment was either Azkaban or the loony bin, and only because she was his little sister would he be willing to advocate for the loony bin, because a crazy fan girl who had gone as far as to put _anybody_ under the influence of a potion and then try to sexually assault them and marry them against their conscious will, deserved Azkaban.

“I didn’t dose him regularly! He was with me of his own free will for most of it!” Ginny knew that had been a lie but still, she had never seen Percy that angry before.

“I don’t care if you only dosed him just the once. He has been slowly dying from moonstone poisoning because of you! The reason why he hasn’t been able to get better after the war ended was because you gave love potions to a medically at risk individual! Bewitchments and enchantments dampen the body’s magical reserves and their ability to fight off illnesses and infections of both the muggle and the magical variety! He is missing months of his memory because you had him so dosed up that he had forgotten that he had a birthday last summer and he has been going around all of these months still thinking he was _eighteen years old_! Never mind the fact that he never actually loved you in the first place! It was all in your head Ginny! He never had a choice but to be artificially infatuated with you! That is not love! That is what killed aunt Samantha! The human body cannot survive from long exposure to chemically induced infatuation potions! It kills people! It destroys lives! You need to be locked up and get some serious help!”

There was a scuffle as Percy tried to capture her but she fought dirty and bit him hard enough to break the skin and she sprinted off toward the populated muggle streets where she kept on running, and didn’t stop until she managed to lose him in the muggle train station. Just to be safe she changed trains nine more times. The following few days she _lived_ on the muggle railroad network. He almost caught her at least once that she knew of, while she had been in London she had to duck behind a trash bin and then race around a while before she found another train and was able to get a ticket and then an hour later jump onto the train before he was able to leap in after her. Her heart literally almost stopped when she had thought herself safe and had settled down into her seat and they were just pulling out of the station and there he was! Running up to the train like a mad dog after a bone and looking more furious than Snape on a bad day!

She didn’t ever recall Percy to be the athletic type. Nor had he ever seemed to sort to be tenacious at running after anything.

It had given her a nightmares for years afterword.

Ginny’s only thoughts after she ran into Percy was to get the hell out of dodge, she didn’t care where, she just had to get as far away as possible.

And then, finding herself in Demark, exhausted, sick of muggle trains, she had ventured out of the depot, spotted sight of a muggle shop devoted solely to all kinds of fermented delights that could serve her well to take the edge off, and with a bag full of muggle money and her ex-boyfriend’s credit she proceeded to get liquored up and when she came to hours later she was stark naked in a strange bed…

…With a strange handsome bloke sleeping mostly dressed atop the covers beside her with hands bound to the headboard with magic…

…on a yacht. …Which was floating just off the coast of Belgium.

“BAAAAH.”

And there had been a _live_ goat. It’s fur spelled pink. Peering warily at her from the doorway of the cabin.

“…What the fuck?”

It took a moment for her to realize that, nope, this was not in fact a dream.

Then the memories began swimming back like fish made out of nothing but piercing pain as they melted back into her consciousness and she remembered that _she_ had been the one who tied the bloke up, she had been the one to take off her own clothes off, and yes, she had been the one to voluntarily have sex with him while he had been bound up.

Twice.

The goat… had followed them aboard the yacht of its own free will.

Thankfully, and this relieved her to know, no one had sex with the goat! It just wandered off when it had enough of being turned different colors.

At that moment it looked like the creature was regretting its decisions just as much as Ginny had been.

It was by far… the strangest hangover Ginny had ever had. Not the worst, which spoke volumes of her life choices, but it had been very… surreal. Normally she woke up on benches or with Harry glaring down at her while she lay on the bathroom floor.

But Ginny knew she was safe, she was freaked out but safe.

She doesn’t know what it was about the situation, but Ginny remembered going through all of the emotions she had been feeling for the past three years of her life, from rage to sorrow, to wondering why she was thinking at all when she hadn’t done much of that while on the trains leading her here.

Namely she had been far away from her family and from the suffocating influences of the British magical world. Being on the boat was… interesting in which Ginny had never thought about the outside world before. There existed a whole globe of places that was not magical Britain!

This was the very first time Ginny had ever left England. It had always been London, the Burrow, Hogwarts, and Hogsmeade. The trip to Egypt didn't count because most of that trip was spent with Ginny having to quietly come to terms with Tom's diary and being possessed and not being allowed to show how upset she had been about it because her family's solution to the incident was to try to forget it had ever happened and just "focus on happy thoughts!". She does not for the life of her remember much of their trip to Egypt other than being completely miserable. Thus it did not count.

She had never been anywhere else, probably would never have gotten even this far away if her mother and the other Purebloods had gotten their way and she had gotten pregnant.

Ginny sat up further because she realized that if Harry had actually managed to get it up she would have gotten pregnant because she HADN’T HAD CONTRACEPTION OF ANY KIND!

In that frightful few seconds Ginny looks over the bloke still sleeping next to her and dove her hand into the empty bottle filled muggle waste bin.

Shite! Did they-?

Condoms. Two of ‘em. Ew. But thank fuck!

It was this series of thoughts that had seemed to free up her mind enough to just… see things from the outside for a moment.

Yes, she had been angry at Harry for telling Percy of all people and not confronting her directly, she had been frustrated at herself for how badly things had spiraled out of control. Frustrated that she and Harry never got around to shagging because he could never get it up when he was not on a love potion and because Harry was always too “busy” for her and people always seemed to be around them all the time and he had developed some kind of weird immunity to joke shop love potions and so she had to be super careful with adding small Amortentia doses every so often and…

When she had been drunk she had remembered wanting to just… not be the only one who was holding it all together, the only one who was expected to dole out all of the sympathy and be all stupidly maternal just because she was a girl. The only one who seemed to be keeping Harry from self-destructing and not following up on all the plans they had made. For having to deal with him whining all the time, and getting overly sensitive about everything, and her mother being so very disappointed in her for accepting a job offer with the Hollyhead Harpies instead of GETTING MARRIED RIGHT AWAY AND START POPPING OUT GRANDBABIES!!!! AnD RoN!!!! Ronald Bilious stupid egotistical fuck-face coward of a bastard Weasley dared! He Dared! He dared chastise her for GETTING A JOB and not DOING HER WOMANLY DUTIES AND START IN ON MAKING BABIES WITH HIS BEST FRIEND AS IF SHE WERE SOME KIND OF **_WHORE_**!!!!

Harry was fine with her following her dreams, Harry Potter the Savior said himself that neither he nor Ginny had the time to be thinking about children at that very moment because they were both too FUCKING BUSY!!! So why the fuck was with everybody else? She was already secure in a surefire marriage to Harry fucking Potter THE SAVIOR for fucks sake! Children would happen later but why the hell should it have to be on everyone else’s timetable as if it were a deadline for a school assignment and not GETTING PREGNANT AND PUSHING OUT ANOTHER HUMAN PERSON AND BEING COOPED UP INSIDE THE HOUSE ALL DAY JUST LIKE MUM WHO HAD NO LIFE OR FUN EVER!!!!

And everyone constantly expecting her to APOLOGIZE!

Apologize for not being girly enough, apologize for getting fed up with Harry’s winging, apologize for being overly emotional, for not being emotional enough, for wanting to wait a bit and have her own life before she threw her body away on being pregnant, apologize for getting angry that she was shoved into the background, for daring to do something so unladylike as to raise her fists against Harry whenever Harry was being too stupid to stand, apologize for being too angry, and for having a little nightcap to take the edge off, AND FOR NOT BEING JUST LIKE HER MUM!

They kept demanding everything from Ginny. Just wanted her to give and give and never take anything for herself and every time she raised her voice or got angry or DID NOT ACT LIKE A STUPID FUCKING GIRL AND BE ALL MEEK AND GIRLY AND SHIT!

But it was only at that very moment in the long minutes of silence and staring down a goat after waking up that Ginny actually stopped to consider that _maybe_ , maaayyybee she had a drinking problem.

Just… a little drinking problem though.

Because honestly? The more she thought back on things the more it dawned on her that the drinking thing sort of paled in comparison to all of her other problems.

It didn’t make her life better by a long shot. In fact drinking heavily only seemed to make her life worse. At the same time it helped make it bearable because she wasn’t… fully all there to suffer her family and Harry. Made everything distant and fizzy and if she drank enough she didn’t have to remember anything.

…But when she drank too much she blacked out and woke up in strange places. Did bad things…

…Had judgmental goats stare at her as she sat stark naked in bed coming to terms with realizing that her first time had been done drunk and not with Harry. That her first time had not been at all like the romantic novels she read as a kid because she had been angry and wanted to get it over with and…

She… kind of… would have preferred it to have been romantic. Would have preferred… not _cuddling_ (ew)… but to have Harry be somewhere close by. To not have been drunk. To…

Well… it was hardly going to matter that Ginny actually hadn’t known what she really wanted at the time, now that they had found out about the amortentia.

Now Percy was saying that she might go to prison for merely doing what was expected of her. Now Harry was probably going to marry some air-headed biddy trophy wife and all of Ginny ‘s hard work, everything she had sacrificed for Harry’s sake, would dwindle down to nothing because Harry was pathetic and he kept chickening out on becoming the man he was supposed to be. The man their world needed. The son of James Potter.

Harry was going to…

…Press charges against her. Her letter would explain everything of course, but he probably wouldn’t really like the idea of her poisoning him, even if it was just an odd drop or three in his tea every time it was necessary to reign him in. Doubtless the press would paint her as the biggest bad guy next to Voldemort for trying to keep Harry’s juicy little inconvenient weaknesses away from their gossip columns.

It’s not like she wanted to do it, she just… had to do something to keep Harry from making mistakes out of his life!

Also she had just cheated on Harry freaking Potter.

The press would have a field day about that just by itself for certain.

Well… kind of cheated. She considered it a very distinct fact that what she had just done would not be technically considered having an affair. Since her relationship with Harry seemed pretty much over anyway. Even if he did by some miracle find it within himself to want to try to work things out it was… exhausting being with him.

Partially because Ginny hated being simultaneously overlooked, objectified, and having things expected of her even though they made her unhappy. Partially because Harry wasn’t the same after the war ended and it took a lot of work to keep him from…

…Not doing what he was supposed to be doing…

…Because people expected things from him, objectified him…

…Stopped him from running off to clear his head because he clearly wasn’t into her anymore and even the strongest love potion known to have ever existed wasn’t enough to keep him from-

She had to stumble over to the nearest bathroom because she was way too hungover to deal with heavy thoughts without slowly drinking a glass of water, and have a pain potion for her stomach which felt as if it had a hole punched through it (a potion she did not have on her so she was forced to suffer), and a shower. That, and she had to take a leak really badly.

Despite herself her brain, which was already in a lot of pain, seemed to hyper focus on that little uncomfortable nugget, which made things even more painful emotionally not just physically because thinking hurt.

Eventually she couldn’t keep up the denial any longer. The strangeness of her situation and her brain obsessively going back to where she could have gone wrong leading to only one conclusion.

OKAY so… maybe Harry just fell out of love with her somewhere along the way. Love potions couldn’t make people fall in actual love with you. Clearly. She hadn’t noticed though because she had been TRYING to keep him from self-destructing by using love potions to… motivate him. Give him a bit of respite from whatever it was that was messing with his brain until he got over himself and moved on just like everybody else.

It wasn’t as if Ginny was the first who had to do this after their husbands came back from war.

Difference was that those husbands clearly loved their wives.

Harry couldn’t even get it up even when she was completely starkers. Half the time-… _all of the time_ he didn’t even want to take off his own clothes around her. He couldn’t even full-on snog her senseless or sweep her off her feet without collapsing from his health problems.

Also, he wasn’t nearly as handsome under his clothes as she had thought she remembered him being before the war. More of a slender girlish build with weird curved hips and no chiseled nothing. Not his chest, not his abs, not his chin, and his apple bottomed bum made him look like a girl from behind. Like… he had seemed so hot and manly right after the battle but under his kit he had been all skin and bones, and when he recovered his body just… was not strapping. Not like the photographs of what his father had looked like.

He had a better looking girly bum than her own bum.

Harry had started looking more and more like his mum. The same mum that people said Ginny kind of looked like so it was kind of like Ginny was dating a brunette version of Lily Potter.

Maybe it was the resentment talking, making Harry’s body out to be such a big problem, since Ginny could see Harry as being exotically attractive if she set her mind in a way that did not point out every five minutes that Harry was supposed to look different from how he ended up… looking like.

He wasn’t ugly, just… she hadn’t been expecting him to look so differently than what she was expecting is all. Harry was supposed to-

But he wasn’t. The Harry in her dream fantasies she’s had since she was a child and the real thing were two different people. Hell, she hadn’t seen him without his shirt before, he could have always looked like that for all she knew.

Not that it mattered. Not anymore.

Harry hadn’t… actually wanted to be with Ginny. He tried to leave her a few times now that she thought about it. It wasn’t as if he had gotten miraculously better after she used the potion on him, and if anything Ginny kept having to up the dosage and curse him just to keep him…

What had been real and what had been magically induced? Somewhere along the way Ginny had lost track.

The whole thing… she did not know, could not remember, when he wasn’t on some kind of potion or spell or another during that final full month together.

It was all just… a lie she was telling herself.

And she nearly killed him twice to keep up the delusion she had that he was in love with her.

There was no going back from this. She had hurt him beyond forgiveness and clearly there was no special tea in the world who could keep Harry Potter at her side as her husband.

It wasn’t real. Not of it had been real. What was the point of all of that grief if he never genuinely loved her back?

Could it be that he had never actually fallen in love with her at all?

Was it all for… nothing?

“…”

 ** _Yes._** Said her brain with such resounding conviction that it made her headache spike like she’d been kicked inside her own skull.

“Ow!”

Damnit.

Everyone was going to be a complete nightmare after they found out that she couldn’t keep Harry Potter.

So much for the fairytale happily ever after love story of the century.

Also so much for ever being able to go home after this.

Pathetically, Ginny cried for the first time in years while stark naked, sitting on a toilet, in some stranger’s yacht, with a goat, a nameless tied up bloke she had her very first sexual experience with, off the coast of another country, while on the run from the law, while on the run from her own family whom she probably could never face ever again.

And she had made a fool of herself in front of _The Harry Potter_ she had worked so hard to impress.

Rock-bottom sucked but it was only made worse because in that moment all Ginny could think about was that she was too young and that she didn’t know what to do next. Which was awful because grown-ups were supposed to know everything.

The salt in the wound was being sober enough to realize that Ginny wasn’t an adult at all yet, but as much as she wanted to she couldn’t talk to her mum to make it all better. Ginny wasn’t ready to be grown-up, but she left herself with no choice.

And she had to live with the choice.

Now, years later, Ginny has grown enough to accept that at the time she really had still been a teenager. She had done her job during the war but people still treated her like a kid because she _was still a kid_. Harry and many others may have grown up too soon, but Ginny still had enough of her childhood self still inside of her to still be under the illusion that being an adult would fix everything. Still been a child in that other people came second and her own wants came first. Had based her whole identity on being the future Mrs. Harry Potter that she had erased her own sense of self in the process, and staked everything on a fairytale that did not exist.

Her road to sobriety was abrupt and short, with no one to act as her safety net Ginny had been forced to learn the true meaning of growing up. And also was forced to get sober because she no longer had a rich boyfriend to make sure she got home safe or fetch her food, or make sure she brushed her teeth, or took a shower, or went to bed at a decent hour so she wouldn’t regret everything when she had to get up the next day.

And even as a real fully grow adult she is _still_ paying the consequences for the stupid stunts she had done as a teenager. Not in a cliché forced-to-suffer-forever-and-have-a-bad-life sort of way, because life does not work like a morality tale, but Ginny definitely got what she had asked for.

It would take a while, and a lot of self-refection, and staying off the booze, but eventually Ginny had to come to terms with the fact that she was the villain in her own story.

Ironically she still did manage to land on her feet. The life she lived from that day onward turned out not so bad, she got a job in Amsterdam, she is well fed, she has new friends, her teammates, money, a place to call home, not a drop to drink save for the occasional glass of wine in public spaces, everything.

The consequences of her teenaged years still ended up ruling her life and all of her decisions though. Which is arguably pretty common for people who become alcoholics at sixteen, but it still sucked that she could never move on and forget it happened. That she could not apologize and make everything better again. A lot of people she had met or heard about over the years had different yet familiar sounding stories of going too far to be able to even ask for forgiveness, so they are forced to move on.

There was no cutting of ties, or burning of bridges because most of the people in her life had already cut ties to her first and by the time she had been of mind to sit down and contemplate, she realized that there was nothing anymore to go back to.

Her life is good now. She got better. Some of it took more time than other bits but she got better.

Yet now she has to live with the constant reminder that most everybody she had ever cared about is probably completely disgusted that her life didn’t turn into a justified karmic punishment. They aren’t happy for her. They’re likely really pissed that she didn’t pay for what she had done in a way that would have made them feel better.

Which, although her family and old friends would vehemently claim otherwise, is in fact a punishment of itself. Knowing that she has no family anymore and that they’ll never be happy for her, because instead of talking to them and telling them what was wrong, she had hurt them.

She had hurt someone who had been the literal love of her life. She had realized that she had been capable of loving him as he was until it became far too late to make a difference.

The day she first dosed Harry with the potion, was the day she lost herself. Now she has to live with the knowledge that she is capable of almost killing the people she loves most, and hurting them beyond repair. Her every action ever since then is dominated by the memory of the worst side of herself.

It is hell really.


	2. Harry Can't Catch A Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Psychological torture, slightly unreliable narrator (given drug induced confusion/memory loss), PTSD, anxiety, chronic pain, health problems, Gaslighting, physical abuse, relationship abuse, and hints at body dysphoria (if you squint).
> 
> (Now would be a very good time to get something to eat and finish homework, but if you feel distressed by the last chapter feel free to scroll down to the end for some cathartic feels).

Run, Breathe, Cry: You’ll Feel Better. Became Harry’s mantra, it was so unlike him, he was a Gryffindor he shouldn’t have to run from anything like a coward, yet at the end of the day it was far too easy, too liberating. He had already fought so hard only to find that some of the things he had been fighting for had only led to more lies and betrayals.

Harry had been dealing with far too much already when Ginny had crashed in and made everything so much worse. Words cannot even begin to comprehend the mental whiplash that transpired over that awful year and a half. By the end Harry was too dazed to even be upset by the other things that came before Ginny.

It hurt. It had been too much. Harry couldn’t withstand it.

The running part being the key thing Harry had found.

Screaming until your voice goes hoarse also seemed to help, just a little though.

Just to properly convey the level of which Ginny had overtaken his whole life here is what Harry had to deal with before she became an issue:

It had begun when Harry’s skin had slowly started to turn brown but that had been while they’d been on the run so none of them had the mind to spare a thought to it.

The discovery behind why Harry’s appearance was slowly changing had come abruptly, but with very little time for Harry to deal with the issue with the time and energy the impending freak out deserved. Immediately after the battle he had been busy, not just because of the funerals, Ministry events, trials, and having to help in rebuilding the castle, but because after dying and coming back alive and adorning the three hallows Harry’s magic began… acting strange. Like in subtle but significant ways where he had accidentally banished Binns into the afterlife and the Grey Lady found out and sort of bullied Harry into doing the same for the Bloody Baron who was also her stalker and murderer. Harry had also began to get strong prophetic intuition feelings that he tried desperately to ignore because he was not at all interested! He already had to deal with being so special that he had been conscripted since he’d been a baby to fight in a war! He had wanted no more of that Chosen One madness!

Of course Harry had also been very ill after the battle, having just died and come back, on top of being malnourished and so, so very tired.

Harry had been prepared to sleep for the next fifty years, only waking up to eat Kreature’s delicious food and hang out with his friends.

But Kreature, being a very old elf who had lived a very hard life, had passed away peacefully in Harry’s arms when they had finally been able to give Regulus Black the hero’s funeral he had deserved.

And if that wasn’t devastating enough a few days after Kreature had been given his own hero’s burial Harry had gotten his very first menstrual bleeding.

Which had been terrifying given that Harry had been positive at the time that he’d been born a boy! He had raced himself to Madam Pomphrey whom he knew to be discreet, and was already the medi-witch who was advising him on what was good to eat when one was recovering from months of not having adequate food. She had been just as surprised as he had been when she examined him only to discover that he had a uterus (!!!) but after having time to get over the shock she ran a few more tests to confirm a suspicion of her’s, and then proceeded to sit Harry down so that she could tell him about paternity mimicking potions.

James was not Harry’s biological father.

Of course, with Madam Pomphrey’s help, Harry had sent for all of his parent’s things that were stashed away in the bank vaults and he had torn through everything to try to discover any scrap of evidence that made sense. Half-wondering if Dumbledore had switched out the real Harry Potter for another baby until-…

Until Harry had found the divorce papers his mother had served to James. Found the letters where James apologized for cheating on her and mum had refused to go back to him. found the contracts Harry’s mum had made James sign that revealed that she had never been in love with James so much as he had given her a choice between having to grovel to Petunia to take her in after muggleborns were banned from being allowed to work in the Ministry (so death basically) or to become his wife and be taken care of. Then when James broke the contract and his wedding vows mum had taken the dowery allotted to her from the Potter vaults and with the help of Remus they had booked it out of there. James covering up the separation with his wife by polyjuicing Sirius to go to Order meetings in her stead until he had found her, she was pregnant, and for some reason he had still wanted her to go back into a warzone with him and claim her child as his own, so he agreed to sign an even more restricting contract and-…

The short of it was: James never stopped being a creep. Mum did what she could to survive. James was infertile from all of that inbreeding and had wanted to save face amongst the other Purebloods and Severus Snape in particular. James was the one who wanted a son and thus had given mum a paternity imitation potion… possibly, likely without her knowledge.

Then James took away both their wands and the invisibility cloak because he worried more about mum escaping with Harry rather than their own safety given how often he would leave the safehouse to mess around and get drunk with Sirius and the rat.

Justifiably, Harry had to go for a long lie-down and be given smelling salts by Madam Pomphrey.

All of this. All on its own. It had been just too much. Harry needed to be allowed to process the flood of shocking developments happening one after the other!

But Harry had not been allowed to do any such thing.

Oh no he would not.

On top of everything else, Harry had been given something even worse that had soon taken up his entire frame of mind and consumed his every waking and sleeping moment to a point to where everything else was either background drama or forgotten because Harry had something far more volatile to deal with!

He had not fully been able to deal with his changing powers nor the shock of the fact that he wasn’t biologically male, nor the heartbreaking betrayal of what James had done to both Harry and his mother on top of the betrayal he felt for Remus and Sirius for lying to him and-

Harry had been planning on telling his friends everything that one faithful summer day, he needed their help and their guidance and support.

But then Ginny had tagged along and… Harry actually doesn’t recall much of what happened that day other than overwhelming thoughts of how radiant Ginny looked and how he felt like complete scum for making her angry.

Of course once the feeling wore off Harry knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could not go through with dating Gin when she was expecting a strapping young man and not a sickly boy who was turning into a woman.

It… had been a pretty bad situation all around. Being dosed with love potion by Ginny was the icing on the horrible cake.

Declaring at fifteen that he had wanted to Go into Aurar training right after Harry had just finished fighting a war had been a bad idea given how much it ended up reminding Harry of what they had all just gone through, Harry actually almost refused to apply and he and Ron had an argument about it.

But then, on a second fateful summer day out Ginny had talked to Harry, made Harry a ‘ _special’_ comforting tea, and by the time he had finished drinking the tiny cup he found that he could not deny her anything because he was so in love with her and of course she was right, she was always right, Harry would become an Aurar just like his father had been. He’s not even sure that she had even known that he and Ron were fighting about the Aurar thing, she airily commanded to him what his life and future was to become and he was too lost in love with her to fight it until a while later when it had worn off and he went _: “Wait a bleedin’ second what the hell am I doing?”._

If it had been anyone else Harry would have instantly realized that some kind of potion or magical spell was affecting him. If it had been anyone else the problem would have been dealt with immediately and that would have been that.

But this had been Ginny Weasley. Ron’s sister, someone that Harry trusted with his life.

He never imagined that she’d been capable of doing such a thing. He _trusted_ her.

And he paid for it.

Harry isn’t sure how many times he had tried to quit but ended up staying were due to Ginny sitting down to “talk” with him or because Harry himself had chickened out all on his own. Something about Ginny’s tea seemed to dampen Harry’s overwhelming intuitive feelings of dread and danger, not the ones brought about by his shell shock but the prophetic ones he did not want to be having. The pre-training was bringing back horrible flashbacks and the almost barbaric attitudes the department had towards certain groups of people (those who couldn’t afford a Hogwarts education, Slytherins, foreigners, haflings like Hagrid and Flitwick, werewolves, house elves… anybody who wasn’t a rich Pureblood…) really ticked him off. He knew that it dismayed Ron, and they hadn’t even formally entered into the real training program yet.

Harry in particular had ** _thankfully_** been delayed full entry due to being scarily malnourished while also being super busy with dealing all the trials and funerals, rebuilding the castle, and attending Ministry events to raise money and moral… in all honesty, after the little freak-out at discovering he wasn’t… Harry had been hiding from the Healers Kingsley had gifted him until Madam Pomphrey (call me Poppy dear) had stepped in and dragged him into her personal care by his ear.

Which ow. _Literally_ by his ear.

Poppy was discreet, amazingly understanding towards Harry’s growing feelings of horror, and she quickly became Harry’s closest confidant because... Harry lost his nerve with telling his friends. He still wasn’t over Ron leaving them to pretty much _die_ , even though it had not been entirely his fault, it still had been mostly of Ron’s own free will and it… hurt. Harry had forgiven Ron but that didn’t mean that the trust was completely mended, especially not since everything seemed to get all better when all Hermione had to do was kiss Ron and it just… left Harry kind of half wondering if Ron liked him for him or because he was Harry Potter.

It would have also been selfish to force Hermione to lie to her boyfriend so Poppy was the only one Harry could turn to.

Which was a small mercy considering that everything else was a complete mess.

Ginny, along with her whole class, had to redo her sixth year on account of not learning a damn thing during the war, and even though there was a lot of whining (shouting on Ginny’s part) it was agreed that with so many lives lost the need to get graduates who were actually well-trained in real magic and not in reciting memorized lines about how much they loved Voldemort (it was as if the Death Eaters had zero long-term plans when it came to actually _running_ a country instead of just strutting around like spoiled entitled children and acting like a nightmare version of Dudley’s gang: just there to do bad things because they could get away with it and not caring about _the future_ or how they could _sustain themselves_ ) going into Ministry jobs and shops were a high priority.

Another high priority was to try to convince a lot of parents and former students of all the half-bloods and muggleborns to come back. Which they weren’t much to McGonagall’s worry and the Purebloods’ confusion. A consequence of all of the rampant pro-Pureblood/anti-everyone else seemed to be that a lot of people were outright refusing to go back to Hogwarts or have anything to do with the magical Ministry at all. Magical Ireland and Wales actually took the opportunity while the Ministry was down for them to declare themselves independent and apparently some concerned magical citizens over there reached out to both America and France to help support the institution of new magical schools that would be an extension of the French and/or American schooling system and therefore be both localized but at the same time very much not run by the Ministry.

Cheaper too, there had been a lot of angry talk of Hogwarts’s outrageous supply cost and how it was stupid of them to think they’d pay when they were trying to get their lives back on track and they had _missed their children god damn you!_

And there was nothing the Ministry could do about it because most of their workforce was either dead or had ran off to other countries. There were entire departments that had been gutted, there were holes in the walls, the cost of the horrible statue of Purebred superiority in the foyer had actually depleted the yearly funds of several important department branches because it had been made out of a super rare fancy magical rock that Harry couldn’t remember the name of.

In fact a lot of money went missing. Between the Death Eaters, the corruption from the top officials, and the special operators (secret police) keeping “loot” or just strait up cooking the books because there was _no oversight,_ there… technically wasn’t much of a government and there wouldn’t be one for a long time (years). They had to covertly sell a lot of artifacts from the Department of Mysteries and all assets from Knockturn Ally were seized and auctioned just to pay wages.

Not that anybody was stupid enough to tell the public this, a lot of effort went into showing off Harry at the trials and a big emphasis was put onto certain (wealthy) offenders paying steep reparations.

It was just as well that Harry ended up under the care of Poppy since him paying her for her services helped not only her out financially but also helped Hogwarts save money since Harry was basically covering for her paycheck.

The downside, for Ginny at least, was that Poppy had treated enough teenagers to have had developed strong opinions about hitting or hexing people just because. More often than not Harry chose to run and hide in Poppy’s office when things were really bad with Ginny.

The downside for him had been that Ginny had been given plenty of chances to drop in on him after appointments, demand he eat or drink something she made, or just demanded a kiss. Which gave Ginny the opportunity to dose Harry up or put enchantment spells on him. It became even worse when McGonagall got involved and insisted Harry come and ride his broom around every Wednesday in order to build back his seeker’s muscle.

Harry’s memory is off because of the effects of whatever it was Ginny was giving him, but he’s pretty sure he spent a lot of days in the infirmary because of Ginny. He certainly knew that his most lucid moments were when he had walked away from Ginny and he was half hiding from Ron or someone who would drag him back to talk to Ginny face-to-face.

Ginny was in a bad place after the war. She was still just sixteen by the end of that horrible year. Still a teenager. Still a child by muggle laws. Still growing up. Her brother Fred was alive but in critical condition, her classmates had been killed before her eyes…

Her family had sent her to Hogwarts anyway even though they knew she would be targeted. Snape had to step in to protect her from being assaulted and tortured. The teachers were all but useless until the very end.

She couldn’t express how much she hated them all because she was expected to be thankful that it was all over and move on. Expected to be a good girl and marry Harry so that the Potter line could continue.

She had been a very angry person, It didn’t excuse her actions, but to her credit she had tried everything in her power to do what was expected of her and hold it all together.

Or at least that was what she had claimed when it had all collapsed. Harry believed her at least. He also hated her for not telling him like an actual well-adjusted human person and instead had torn up his own life just because she had acted like a teenager, a child, someone who really should not have been in a serious adult relationship and should have loved Harry enough to let him go instead of try to control things artificially. As if Harry wasn’t anything more than a cardboard cutout character in one of those stupid romance novels she read in secret, the stories that played off love potions and girls punching people as a funny gag. For being so wrapped up in herself and her own issues that Harry’s emotions were something she despised because she did not want to deal with them.

Inconvenient. That was what Harry was to her. Ill, useless, and too emotionally human when she had only cared about herself and her selfish desires for a fairytale to fix her.

She was still a child. There may only be a year difference between them, they both may have fought the same war, but Harry grew up. Outgrew her.

Teenagers did not mature at the same rate, physically they may be young adults but mentally was a completely different thing, and despite what Ginny claimed, fighting a war did not automatically mean that people grew up completely. Harry wanted a life partner who would approach their relationship on equal ground like an adult, Ginny wanted a storybook romance with a famous manly hero to sweep her off her feet, and where Harry was always, in some form, subservient to her and her needs.

A cardboard boyfriend if you will. A fun sex toy to show off.

Not that Ginny was shallow, but she was… a teenager with teenaged expectations that never fit because Harry wanted an adult level of maturity to his relationship.

Not that her own trauma from the war had helped her grow up in the first place, if anything it stunted her emotional development.

It had been… eerie seeing Ginny again directly in the aftermath of the final battle after spending so long apart. She didn’t cry, she didn’t smile sincerely, she was angry but in a way that was… very difficult to be around. She snapped at people who were openly grieving to stop being so weak, she yelled at other girls for being “too girly”, and there had been times when she said some very inappropriate things about muggleborns and squibs. Not in the same way a Death Eater would but more in a way that seemed to indicate that she was angry at them for having the sense to flee instead of all of them fighting to the death like the Purebloods and the others at Hogwarts had to do.

Which made no sense since by all accounts it was technically the fault of the parents or the Ministry for forcing the parents, for sending their kids there in the first place when they knew it would not be safe.

That wasn’t accounting for the alcoholism either.

No one thought to not give her booze when she accompanied Harry out to places. She had fought in the battle so apparently, according to Ginny, people just gave her as much as she asked for, entire bottles even and left Harry to pick up the pieces. Ginny could be a violent drunk if she was set off just right.

Harry did not know what it had been like while Ginny had still been in school that extra year and some months in change but Hermione started to really dislike her attitude, and Ginny could have done with a mind healer but she hexed anyone who dared mention it.

From Harry’s perspective his life had dissolved in between bouts of absolute clarity and muddled haze. There were weeks he could not for the life of him recall (a side effect of improperly brewed love potion and/or memory charms) what had happened, but he does remember that he had tried to leave Ginny several times, he tried to quit the Aurar program, he tried to find his footing in order to give himself some peace of mind.

He and Ron had a falling out because of Harry’s erratic behavior making Ron think Harry was doing his sister wrong, and because Harry was resentful that Ron refused to do anything about his sister beating Harry up if Harry so much as breathed wrong. Ron also unfairly blamed Harry for his sister’s anger and alcohol problem, but most of that was that Harry had been unenthusiastic about becoming an Aurar and Ron felt hurt that Harry wasn’t envisioning them both becoming crime fighting partners.

Then Ron got jealous because Harry began drifting further towards Hermione because Hermione was actually willing to admit something was horrifically wrong and between Hermione spending quality friendship time with Harry and Harry being a potential rival “male” Ron was jealous on two fronts.

To be fair on Ron’s part, he was healthy enough to be admitted with the Aurars and he was ridiculously busy so Ron just… wasn’t around much to see things for what they were. All he saw was his baby sister crying because of Harry. To him Ginny had not changed, it had been everyone else who had changed.

Ron was never really around enough to see much of anything.

Molly at least saw something was up and tried to speak on Harry’s behalf to Ginny but Ginny was… not speaking to her own mother at some point. Harry spoke to Molly and Arthur in Ginny’s place, often making up excuses for why Gin was being a right terror because they were already going through enough having almost lost one child…

But over time Harry wasn’t able to hide the bruises and burns, the way he stopped bothering to wrack his shoddy memory to remember things and instead just tiredly asked what others recalled because that saved time, the way he did not seem to be recovering very well despite his darkening complexion. They knew something was up, and they fed Harry and let him sleep at the Burrow on the days he was too sick to look after himself since Kreature had died, finally at peace after giving his master a proper funeral. Harry knew that Ginny pretty much only talked to Ron after a certain point because everyone else was around to see Ginny’s downward spiral and Harry only seeming to get sicker and more forgetful. Once… or maybe it was a few times, Molly had elected to do his washing and had found blood stains in Harry’s underdrawers, which Poppy thankfully backed him up in making up an excuse about how Harry had a lifetime of abuse since the age of one and how it was all catching up to him and he’d survive but he needed time and rest to recover. Actually, Harry was almost positive that they all thought he was actually going to die because he has a very clear memory of Ginny yelling at him for being so whiny that everyone thought she was being a terrible girlfriend, and because Harry was not under any kind of influences at the time he had told her that she was, she hexed him, he walked away, then weeks later Ron dragged him to her, she dosed him, and Harry apologized.

Of course everyone was busy in the post-war era and Ginny spent most of the year away from her family attending a boarding school, and there were seven children plus Harry to keep track of so it wasn’t until just before Ginny had started her eighth year that her family had _really_ taken notice that something was beyond wrong. Like, they were used to Ginny being angry and aggressive but that summer was really something else. Ginny had gotten so angry at Molly for one reason or another that she moved out and stayed with Ron, and then refused to let anyone see her off at the train station and that was how Molly had discovered that Ginny had a drinking problem.

Molly and Arthur had been gentle when they had asked Harry about it, and at the time Harry had been so worried that Ginny would drink herself to death that he had broke down crying over the whole thing. Told them everything, from how she always seemed to have alcohol on her breath, her drunken rage, Harry not knowing how Ginny kept getting alcohol in the first place and whenever he tried to stop her-…

Ginny dropping out of Hogwarts had raised alarms with everyone. Harry wasn’t entirely lucid by this point but he recalls that he had told himself that perhaps he could save her life by looking out after her. He made arrangements for Hedwig to stay with Andromeda because he feared for his owl’s safety around Ginny, he made sure their flat would be quite a long walk away from any pub or shop selling liquor, he placed his most precious valuables, including his invisibility cloak in storage, ensured that she could not access his bank vault for drinking money, and because she was at the legal age to buy liquor he resolved to water down any and all bottles she bought.

Only for it to backfire because he was so, so sick by that point. He could not keep up. He ended up living like he had back at his relatives with doing all of the cooking and cleaning and it was worse because he had to deal with her hangovers and the fact that she refused to take care of herself!

The fact that she was disgusted by the very sight of him. Always drunkenly mentioned how sexy his father was and how ugly he’d turned out. That hurt in more ways than she had known.

Why was she even with him? He’d wonder. If she hated him so much why demand that they live together at all?

And then when he’d ask she’d make him tea, when he started refusing to have tea with her he’d be hit with a strange warm feeling all over and suddenly his mind was changed because he loved her and he owed her at least one cup of tea.

Just the one.

And then he’d stop wondering, because she was angry with him and it felt like his heart and soul was being flayed open, revealing all of his insecurities and weaknesses and it was just… so much easier to keep quiet and out of her way. For she had said it was his fault she was like this.

And he’d believe her. And it had hurt.

Ginny did not even bother coming for Christmas that year. She was so far removed from everyone by that point that she refused to see her own family because they’d force her to be sober, and she claimed that she could no longer handle “ _all of ye stupid sodding feks a second longer! Ahm gonno go t’ da pub! ‘Ave a real ‘oliday! I fought inna fekking war! An’ye stooped feks jes pr’tend like it din happen!_ ”.

Harry had come to Christmas alone, had awkwardly broke down and cried a little while Molly and him were alone in her kitchen. It had only been two weeks after moving in with Ginny and Harry had felt himself begin to fall apart because when he wasn’t on the potion it felt as though he were living with a violent stranger, when he was on the potion it felt as if his world was ending because Ginny didn’t seem to even like him.

On some level Harry sort of knew that this may be his last Christmas at the Burrow.

Two weeks later, after a great deal of intervention from his parents, Ron and he had established a tense truce in order for Ron to help Harry get rid of all of Ginny’s alcohol she had squirreled away in the flat, Ginny came back in a roaring drunken rage, then Harry had known nothing but pain until he blacked out.

Ron, who had been on his way back from safely tucking away the mostly full or still full bottles away for his own use later, got a shock at seeing Ginny in a violent drunken state for the first time, slurring her words as she screamed at him, hexing him for good measure, then leaving.

Ron admitted later, sitting down at Harry’s bedside with the help of a cane while Harry was under Poppy’s care in her healing ward, that when he managed to slowly limp his way to the flat and saw Harry bloodied and lying motionless on the floor he had thought she had actually managed to kill him, and that Ron was starting to think that he had been angry at the wrong people this whole time. To be fair she is his little sister and she had lied to him and he had been super busy… but Ron was (rightfully given he was an Aurar) still torn up about being so easily decieved.

The next three and a half weeks were a flurry of the Weasley family in crisis mode as they simultaneously tried to make sure Harry was okay and safely far away from Ginny while also trying to figure out about what they were to do with Ginny because the only two options were to either formally arrest her or to drag her off to muggle rehab.

And no one could find hide nor hair of Ginny for _two days_ , which wasn’t much of a surprise since someone had managed to snag an unflattering picture of her mid-hexing the photographer from a muggle park bench. But when she had _finally_ come back to flat (which had been devoid of all of Harry’s possessions because Hermione had been contacted and she was on the ball with getting Harry the hell out) Ginny wasn’t having with either of those options. She was demanding that Harry move back in so she and Harry work out their own problems and everyone else butt out! Asking people where he was, hiding from her parents, hexing her brothers on sight or just outright running away…

Hermione had packed up all of Harry’s things while Ginny was still M.I.A, into neat, well organized boxes with labels and everything. Which was very sweet but when Harry saw them it clicked in the back of his mind that… most of the stuff he considered to be his was never at the flat in the first place.

Harry than went through the boxes and realized that, yes, most of it was just stuff that Ginny had said Harry _should_ have, because Ginny had said Harry needed to look like a wizard now that he was _“of their world”._ Her parents had frequented muggle thrift shops to save money on clothes all her life but since Harry had the funds he could afford proper wizard robes that uh… “filled out his figure”, a figure that didn’t exist but could be constructed with the right tailoring.

So Harry had made a pile of things that he wanted to keep and the rest he either sent back to Ginny or donated to a muggle charity shop in exchange for half off of what was on offer there.

Harry hadn’t realized until that moment how much he had missed muggle clothing until he was allowed to buy his own clothes.

He stayed with Andromeda and Teddy through the duration of his separation from Ginny. Arthur and Molly had offered to house him at the Burrow but Harry did not want to risk Ginny sneaking in to see him, Andromeda did not owe family obligations to Ginny and Ginny was excluded from the wards of her house.

It was at this time that Harry decided to tentatively come clean about what James had done to both Harry and his mum. Not say a word about his biological gender, but just… explain why his skin seemed to be getting darker and the bones in his face slowly becoming… different.

Andromeda handled the news of Harry’s paternity with surprising grace, actually providing Harry with a wealth of interesting background knowledge because as it had turned out Andromeda’s own mother had been allergic to a key ingredient of the potion and that was why her three daughters had such widely different coloring. No one dared comment about Narcissa, but for Purebred women who had been “in the know”, one straight-haired blonde in a family filled with curly or wavy haired brunets was certainly not albinism. She offered her sympathies for Harry’s mum but also calmly pointed out that had they lived Harry’s mother would have had James by the short and curly hairs because despite all of his posturing he cared more about what Purebloods thought of him than was healthy. He was simply too immature to handle having a real life woman as a wife. He had wanted a fantasy, and what he got was a lioness with a cub.

Ron and Hermione on the other hand flipped out. They had noticed Harry’s slow change but it hadn’t been fast enough for them to really question it considering Harry had stated on several occasions that he was recovering from a whole lifetime of pretty severe neglect. They had just assumed he was getting a healthy complexion.

Hermione, ever the researcher, tore into James’s things and subjected Harry to a battery of her own tests some of which Harry was faintly certain she had invented just for him, looking for clues or some kind of explanation that did not amount to James-Potter-hallowed-war-hero-was-an-abusive-husband-and-such-a-deadbeat-dad-that-his-son-wasn’t-even-his.

Ron was too stunned to speak and to fill in the awkward silence Harry confessed that part of the reason why Harry had not entered the Aurar program was because he was never going to recover enough to be able to do the hard physical work an Aurar was required to do.

After experiences years of abusive neglect, hard or dangerous physical quidditch practice, and constant painful injuries, his magic and his body were getting too tired to hold things together. In fact Harry was currently suffering from the beginnings of arthritis in his joints and he was in fact suffering from what was known as delayed puberty, which yes, meant that Harry was physically unable to do his sister even with stimulus potions, along with being too terrified to get it up to do her anyway. He might actually end up being infertile if his magic were not allowed to rest from healing and defending itself from the constant hexing because his body was still suffering from nearly two decades of malnutrition and nearly dying. Which was why Harry kept trying to break up with her and he never told Ginny because she thought Harry was actually super ugly already and he wasn’t keen on getting beaten up again for something that he could not control nor was his fault.

That led to and even more awkward conversation in which Ron had to tell Harry what boy puberty actually entailed because Harry had been too busy trying not to die in Hogwarts to notice Ron or the others going through it… and had never been able to get a legal guardian’s signature to take sex education from Poppy. Which was cruel and convoluted and for a guilty moment Harry hoped that Hogwarts never saw a rise in enrollment to justify it staying open.

Harry had to tell Ron all about how Ginny was the one to push Harry into not abandoning the Aurar thing because she wanted Harry to be James Potter, she would not stop talking about Harry becoming like James Potter, disappointed was an understatement when describing how Ginny reacted to Harry being a person and not like how his legend stood in her mind. She made horrible comments about his looks constantly, and he doubted that telling her the truth would help at all because Harry’s true form was dark skinned with clear oriental ancestry and the slim and petite body to match the ethnicity. A _girlish_ figure one would hazard to say by European standards. Not the strapping white Purebred English specimen that was James Potter.

Ron argued that Ginny wouldn’t care if Harry wasn’t… well she dated Dean hadn’t she?

Harry reminded Ron that Ginny had only dated Dean to try to make Harry jealous and notice her… which was odd that it worked so well because Harry hadn’t felt any attraction towards Ginny at all and had in fact seen her a something akin to a little sister yet within the span of an hour… suddenly everything was different? Normally Harry would never pursue a girl who was already dating someone else because he had learned from Cho that even with being _The Harry Potter_ did not guarantee that she’d like him back. Also he hadn’t really thought about Dean and that was really weird because before that point Harry had been very close with Dean, closer than he had been with Ginny, and would never-…

It was a terrible time to have an epiphany, especially in front of Ron, who had proven many times before that he would side by Ginny and sometimes even drag Harry back to ‘confront her face to face’ like a Gryffindor normally would.

“What-”

“I’m just not myself when I’m around her.” Harry had floundered to improvise. Distract Ron from his train of thought. “Maybe it’s because people expect me to become James’s replacement, maybe I’m unhealthily obsessed with legally belonging to a loving family, maybe I’m just a sucker for people who look like my mother getting all teary eyed. Whatever the reason I… cannot be around her. It’s not working. It’s not fair to either of us. Pretty obvious by this point that I’m not _boyfriend_ material and she doesn’t actually even like me. It’ll be better for everyone if we just… never see each other again. For some… unknown reason she still wants to keep up appearances even though she clearly hates the prospect of living with me and I keep forgetting all the reasons why we are so bad for one another because she can act… so sweet and genuine that I second-guess myself despite knowing that it’s all an act!”

“What do you mean by that? I thought she loves you.”

“Ron, you’ve been so busy with work that you’ve only seen your sister when other people are around to watch her. The entire magical world and even her own family are expecting her to give up her dreams to become nothing more than a living incubator and trophy wife. The press hounds her day and night demanding why she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet and yelling at her for not having a ring on her finger. She is terrified of what you lot will do to her, she’s furious at me for not being the Harry Potter-clone-of-perfect-handsome-James she had signed up for. I try to leave, but it never works because everybody wants me to marry someone who looks like my mother only improved because she is Purebred and nobody listens when I try to explain, instead everybody makes her life an utter hell until she gets me to come back. She has not been in love with me for… years. When she has no reason to keep up appearances or to keep me from leaving she doesn’t bother to hold back how much she hates me. The Ginny you saw that day is the Ginny that I have been living with for the past month and the Ginny that I have been trying to get away from ever since we won the war. Not the smiling Ginny the public gets to see, the angry drunk Ginny who hits me and finds excuses to stay out late at night so she doesn’t even have to look at me, who hangs out with much better looking, more fit, handsome, healthy men even though she knows it hurts me. I am not healthy, she can’t stand that, cannot stand to see me without a shirt on because I am so ugly and sick and don’t look anything at all like I should have if I were Saint James Potter’s biological son.”

It took a while for Ron to process this. Harry remembers Hermione sliding on the couch beside him in order to hold him comfortingly while Ron paced his apartment in deep thought.

Meanwhile Harry had picked up the thread of thought of his initial realization, turning it slowly over in his mind as he followed it through his memories.

But no. He refused to believe that. Ginny would never sink so low.

Or so Harry had thought.

“I really don’t want to see her.”

“Harry, you need to tell her to her face-“

“As if that has ever ended well for me in the past!”

“We will be there this time.” Hermione told Harry. “You will be in a public muggle place, and Ron and I will be right there in disguise to intervene.

“Speaking of which, do I really have to wear the skirt-… right yes. Yes I do.” Ron looked down to the ground in chastisement at Hermione’s downright _vicious_ glare, as he held up a muggle school girl uniform to his body.

“Maybe I should be the one wearing the skirt.” Harry had mused darkly, and with hidden meaning that neither of his friends would understand. “I mean she’s already calling me a girl at every other opportunity-“

“You don’t look like a girl!” Ron had snapped . “You look just as handsome as always! Half the time the papers are all on about how handsome you are, she’s just being a wanker for the sake of being mean!”

Harry had to trust Ron on that one, in just a t-shirt and jeans Harry’s feminine curves could be seen, and he was still far too skinny and far too short to be someone Ginny would find attractive. Harry’s skin was dark enough that he was able to borrow some of Hermione’s make-up to hide the dark circles under his eyes, having her help him not look nearly so gaunt.

If they had known about the potions none of them would have gone through with it. the plan had been for Harry to go in, tell Ginny it was over so that she’d stop trying to hunt him down, and then the three of them were to go out for pizza and watch sappy muggle movies at Hermione’s flat. They all had thought that Ginny just needed to be given a slap on the wrist for her to realize it was over and make it clear that she could either get herself some help, or not expect Ron to cover for her the next time she pulled this kind of bullshite.

Harry doesn’t remember much after he had arrived to the park. Which was understandable given how much potion was put into his system by the end of everything.

On the same day Ginny had made her “tea” like always, and just like always Harry was compelled to apologize, not of his own free will, for throwing out all of the booze he could find in Ginny’s things, and for telling her brother about her developing drinking problem, and then moving out completely when Ginny had hexed and hit him with a newly bought, newly empty bottle of whiskey so hard that he broke a rib. Accepted her apology for hurting him. Then Harry was made to apologize again for being so difficult to the point to where Ginny had lost her cool with him.

Yet when asked to get back together with her, move back in with her and start all over, have a fresh start where Ginny promised to not hurt him or be such a nightmare anymore, Harry simply could not bring himself to accept. He loved her more than anything in the entire world at that moment and he knew that she would never be happy with him. She begged, she wheedled, made him drink nearly seven little cups of tea, and had at one point pulled out a potions bottle and just filled the cup with the opal colored liquid inside, but still Harry could not bring himself to agree. Harry, under the love potion’s influence, had desperately wanted to spare his beloved the horrible truth. Had wanted her to move on so that she could finally, finally be happy after all of the pain he had brought her. In that moment, as was always the case after he drank her “tea” he had felt as if everything wrong in her life had been all his fault and he deserved to not even be scum on the heel of her boot.

He was not the boy she had fallen in love with.

In more ways than one.

Eventually it got to be too much and without even waiting for his friends to come out and help him Harry had to run out in tears, stumbling, slightly splinching his arm as he apparated away from her pursuit, he didn’t know what he was doing or where he was, only that he had to get away.

He had the unfortunate luck of stumbling into Malfoy who took one look at Harry’s bleeding arm after getting a good whiff of Harry’s breath and justifiably freaked out. Actually not being a jerk for once and apparating Harry away from the area.

Normally Harry would have tried to run from Malfoy in such a state but in the moment Harry had felt as if he wanted to die for denying Ginny anything, but he was not the man she deserved. His thoughts had grown dark with despair and nearly suicidal, though to be honest he didn’t have the means to spare such thought much deep contemplation, seeing as how at the time the effects of too much love potion was affecting his nervous system and he had suddenly had trouble walking without using a great deal of concentration in order to get one foot in front of the other. Malfoy had to lift Harry up into his arms it had gotten so bad.

Harry had insisted on being brought to Poppy and begged, actually cried into his childhood foe’s shoulder, begging him not to tell Ginny because Harry loved her so much and she couldn’t know Harry was sick. She hated it when Harry showed weakness.

Harry wasn’t sure what Malfoy made of that, Harry had felt far too ill to notice much of anything.

But he did get Harry to Poppy immediately. Harry would give Malfoy that much.

This all was very ironic, because before things turned from bad to horrible Ginny had been very careful with **_not_** making Harry drinks with love potion in them or to curse Harry with an infatuation spell right before one of Harry’s medical appointments. Always careful to use low doses so that the potion did not last long enough in his system to be accidently detected by routine medical exams, before Ginny began to spiral downward she only resorted to those methods sparingly. Ginny had thought that as long as it wasn’t constant dosages then perhaps Harry could be trained or steered into the “right” directions that she wanted him to go.

Train him. Essentially. To become the man she wanted him to be.

Poppy had done what she claimed was a routine blood test… but it was more likely that Malfoy told her about the symptoms Harry was showing and she had cottoned onto what was going on so when she discovered the love potion in Harry’s system, along with Harry swearing he was out of his mind in love with Ginny, her suspicions were confirmed with undeniable iron-clad evidence.

And she had a witness to boot. A witness who had likely figured out at least the gist of it.

She locked Harry in quarantine to stay for two full weeks and put him through a more thorough blood screening. The results of which proved that Harry had symptoms of long-term love potion dosage. In fact, he had a worryingly high dosage in his system, overdosed was the word she used. He had to get his stomach pumped, restrained to a bed, and his veins be hooked up by needles and rubber tubes to a bunch of odd looking liquids in jars.

It was very scary.

The very next morning Harry had gotten a letter from Ginny. One Poppy had confiscated until Harry was fully himself again. Highlighting even further how serious the situation could develop if Harry were to be set free without protection or allowed to be influenced by Ginny before the potion was out of his system.

Ginny had said in her final letter to him that it wasn’t illegal, what she had done to him, said that it was only because she loved him and had wanted the best for the both of them. Which was technically true, but at the same time not so very true, given how much Ginny despised him for not acting like the Harry Potter she had fallen for at the age of seven. Also, because all past convictions on love potion related court cases tended to depend on how rich and how popular the victim was. Furthermore, Hermione being Hermione, would make it her personal mission in life to destroy Ginny and ban any love potions from legality.

Ginny also, also very clearly knew it was wrong or else she would not have been so terrified of Harry throwing her in Azkaban. That was the thing that really hurt: she was worried about how it would affect _her_ , but how Harry felt about it never factored into the equation. There was a reason why it was always said that one drop is enough when it came to love potions. She had poisoned him with a possibly fatal dose and all she could say for herself was that it was legal and that he needed to come back to her.

It didn’t make sense!

Well… Harry could kind of understand Ginny wanting to catch Harry’s attention and then keep him bound to her in order to not be known as a failure for not being able to bag _The Harry Potter_. A lot of people were on her back about babies and duties of a woman in a real bad way.

Poppy didn’t possess that kind of insight.

Nor a tolerance for fools.

So Poppy had put him under observation, tucked up nice an safe under the padded leather restraints to ride out the withdrawal symptoms while she set to do some hard thinking for the next several days about what she was to do next.

Apparently what was next was that she sent an anonymous tip to one of the Weasleys working directly at the Ministry in order to have him look into his little sister’s financials and had begged Harry to allow her permission to break confidentiality and tell him what was really going on.

Harry had assumed she had been talking about Ron, since by then he was a fully established Aurar, so he told her to say as much as she thought would be necessary.

…Thing was that the Weasley she had contacted was not Ron.

Both Hermione and Ron had finally found him by that point, and they were both practically living in the infirmary absolutely sick with worry, but Poppy had heard enough about Ron’s attitude for the past several months to not want him in charge of the situation, and Hermione was in no shape nor position to do much of anything other than laying her head down on Harry’s chest because she had noticed Ginny spiking the tea far too late to stop Harry from drinking it and Hermione was terrified that Harry’s heart would stop beating if she so much as took a restroom break.

It was Percy.

He was the one Poppy had called.

Percy who brought a dict-a-quill and had forms for Harry to fill out. Percy who took Harry’s statement and provided the handkerchiefs when everything got to be too much and Harry would dissolve into tears. Percy who silently read Ginny’s letter because Harry was too scared to so much as look at it for fear he’d dissolve into another round of feeling like everything was his fault. Percy had gotten angry at his sister, left, and came back the next day all scratched up and with a bitemark on his arm and said that Harry would be staying in Percy’s spare room because his role in the war meant that Ginny hated Percy too much to think to look for him there.

Harry had been too afraid to ask but Percy filled him in anyway, saying that Ginny was currently at large and that imprisonment was not being considered… yet. Instead Percy and Hermione were consulting with mind healers because while Ginny was doing pretty serious crimes, she was also clearly… not sane enough to fully understand what she was actually doing. Percy admitted that Ginny was emotionally stunted by the six years of trauma she had experienced at Hogwarts, not growing out of the maturity of a pre-teen. She also had a violent case of shell shock that was only exasperated by the alcoholism.

It was not an excuse for her actions, but it was justification to get her professional help that she desperately needed.

Which was hardly news for Harry and Percy wasn’t expecting it to be. The point was only to assure Harry that they all knew now.

…Well all of them knew about the drinking and the horrible way she had been treating Harry. Neither Ron or Percy truly had the guts to tell their parents or other siblings about the love potions.

Harry didn’t have the courage to say anything either, so they agreed to say that potions that would remain unnamed had been used to “calm Harry down” or to “make it so that Harry didn’t care” whenever Ginny screwed up. Not lying… just… being vague.

The other facts though, the fact that terrified Harry the most were that Ginny had genuinely not realized that what she was doing was wrong because, as stated in Ginny’s letter, she had gotten the idea to dose Harry with love potion she had bought at the twin’s shop from a _Witch Weekly_ article that had prescribed “ _grabbing your crush’s attention with one dose, how keeping him interested”_ and just simply play it off as if Harry had never been dosed because then Harry would just assume he had genuine feelings for Ginny. Then Ginny had gotten advise from an old wives handbook from the Hogwarts library which prescribed tailored spells for the straying husband, and special potions to keep husbands on track after coming back from war with _“evil humors left by the demons of sinful wrath of battle_ ”, and finally, when nothing was going to plan and Harry started pulling away despite her best efforts to “ _cure_ ” Harry from doing anything that deviated from the plans Harry had made for himself made before the war. She started frequenting what was left of Knockturn Ally for the incredibly potent potions. Upping the dosage and frequency as her own downward spiral left her feeling as if she were losing control of her life and she just… wanted to keep Harry under until the world stopped sucking so much.

Everything of which, save for the illegal most potent potion, was actually considered acceptable legal actions for a wife to take when ensuring her Purebred betrothed or husband did not forsake their family obligation to keep the Pureblooded family name from going extinct. An old barbaric loophole for certain, and not one that could account for the harm done to Harry.

“However…” Percy had steeled himself. “You could still press charges against her seeing as how she had stolen money and… I am assuming had attempted to have… relations of a… sexual nature while you had been under the influence.”

“I suffer from delayed puberty due to my upbringing and the stress caused by… all of those adults who tried to kill me. I am unable to… “get it up” as it were, there has been… just too much damage done from the past. I also cannot say under oath when I was under the influence or when I was of sound mind.”

“But you had to be rushed to Poppy when you had an adverse reaction to a virility stimulant potion.”

“I-… yes.”

“Was the stimulus potion her idea.”

“…Yes.” Harry said almost too quiet to hear.

“And you cannot say for a fact whether or not you had actually consented to taking it.”

“…”

“I thought so.”

Harry mostly stayed in bed and tried to sleep as his body healed. Sometimes there had been someone there to watch over him, though in the beginning Harry had been far too ill and he wasn’t always lucid through the whole visit.

“I think after this I should take a vacation somewhere out of the country.” Harry had decided one day, he didn’t remember who he had been talking to because his eyelids had been very heavy but they held his hand as if they agreed.

Ron had cried a lot. Almost as if he sensed that Harry had decided he probably wouldn’t be coming back. Hermione fussed over him but since she was also looking into going to attend magical universities abroad she and Harry often discussed the options they both could take in their lives going forward. This was how Harry was talked into applying to study for his A-levels after taking a well-deserved vacation.

It wasn’t brought up but Harry was positive that Hermione never mentioned Ron factoring into her future plans was because they had broken up a long while ago and Harry must have been too dosed up to have noticed.

Molly often watched over Harry, it hurt him the most when she would blame herself for not doing something at Christmas or even long before then when it was clear Harry had been so miserable. Ill and in need of a loving environment and not forced to play babysitter to Ginny who had become an _“uncouth party girl”,_ too wild, young, and irresponsible to be the loving wife Harry needed her to be.

By the time March rolled around Harry was still weak but strong enough in mind to have made plans to spend some time in the warmer parts on the Continent. Come next fall he would be attending some kind of foreign wizard-to-muggle school program Hermione found for him in Norway that would train him for his A-Levels exam.

He didn’t know what became of Ginny, other than vague impressions that she had ran off and joined a team in Magical Netherlands with some handsomely fit, healthy man. Molly had been too furious to slow down enough for Harry to decipher what she had been saying when she ranted about it, but Harry got the distinct impression that Molly assumed Ginny had cheated on Harry with one of her drinking mates and it had been this unnamed, _other man_ who had tempted her sweet little girl away from them.

Oddly Harry was actually incredibly relieved that Ginny had found someone else. Someone who could sweep her off her feet and shag her to her heart’s content. Someone who was built like an ox and well enough to keep up with her.

Harry had an inkling, he didn’t know why he thought it, but he got the feeling that getting away from magical England would save her sanity, if not her liver. Allow her to grow up into an adult without being overshadowed by Harry’s name or the expectation that she be nothing but an incubator for babies. To be forgotten as nothing more than the pretty redheaded wife of a Potter.

She wouldn’t completely stop drinking, but she wouldn’t try to drown herself just trying to make the life she had trapped herself into more tolerable. Harry just… _knew_ , or hoped it would turn out better for her.

He still had to be asked questions for a semi-official statement. Ron tried his best to put on a brave face and ask what he needed to, that the whole family needed to know.

Tried being the key word. Harry gave him props for being such a good sport though.

So Percy had to end up doing it.

“When was the first instance that you had tried to leave her and you suspect she may have used a charm or potion to force you to stay?” Percy had gotten right to the point. All professional even as he was wearing pajamas over breakfast. It had been weeks after Harry had moved in and he and Percy had gotten… oddly domestic, with Harry cooking meals and cleaning up whenever he had the strength and Percy doting on him and sometimes platonically sleeping next to Harry on the bad nights.

Harry often stared down at his browning skin at the time and wondering how much everyone knew to not have commented on Harry’s evolving appearance for all of this time. Did Poppy tell Percy that harry was not biologically male? Yet Harry had not brought it up.

Instead he tried to focus on immediate concerns.

“The summer after the Battle of Hogwarts, she tagged along when Ron Hermione and I were hanging out for the last time before our lives got busy again, I tried to refuse her, she got me a drink while Ron and Hermione were off flirting. Though to be honest… I’m beyond positive that she dosed me when I was sixteen too. The very first time we got together one moment I hadn’t felt anything in particular about her dating Dean and I was more preoccupied with Voldemort being back… and then one day I just looked at her and she was the entire world and nothing else mattered. I saw her in ways I had never done even an hour previously and I had wondered why I had been so blind to how… perfect I felt she had been.”

Percy cussed under his breath.

“She must have gotten lower forms of love potion from those two damn fools’ shop!” He hissed turning a little purple around the edges from anger.

“It’s not as if it didn’t bite her in the arse by the end of it!” Harry tried to soothe. “I wasn’t in a good place and It wasn’t fair to her either. I was swamped with restoration and funerals and trials and she needed to spend more time with her family and get a proper education… there was no time to do right by her and be a boyfriend. In the beginning that was why I kept trying-… It felt as if she were throwing her life away just to make people happy and just be Mrs. Potter, the living baby-making incubator. …In all honesty it was her talking about having children as if it were an obligation and not something she particularly wanted to do that really made me feel like a right heel.” Harry had recalled,

But then remembered that he was talking to a **_Pureblood_**. Who saw childbearing as a woman’s sole goal in life and a precious gift from nature and other sexist rot.

“It’s a muggle thing… and a me thing. I didn’t want to have children with her unless she was a hundred percent onboard. I learned the hard way that children should never have to feel as if they were a burden or born just solely for… breeding. From those of us with a parent or an authority figure who only saw us a means to an end… it messes us up. We grow up to be very sad.” Harry had quickly explained, which earned him a look of deep pity from Percy who had sighed and took out another folder from his briefcase filled with receipts.

“There is also the matter of restitutions. The goblins reported that she had attempted to withdraw funds from your account-“

“That was-…” Harry flushed red from shame because he had tried to preemptively cut her off from buying alcohol, she had funds from the restitutions that the Ministry doled out for those who fought at Hogwarts but Harry knew that would dry up quickly now that Gin wasn’t at Hogwarts any longer, so before she even finished packing up to move in with him he had secretly filed paperwork with the bank stating that she was not to withdraw any funds without the permission of both Harry _and_ Bill… He knew she had stolen his vault key though and he had not been able to find out just yet what she had gotten up to. He wouldn’t put it past the goblins to look the other way after he had stolen their dragon. Even if he had apologized by giving the goblins detailed instructions of how the Marauder’s made their map to track people. So that they could use that instead of dragon to protect their bank.

“Was she able to get in?”

“No. The Goblins absolutely refused. However, she had stolen your muggle wallet that you used when you are in the muggle world and your credit check proves that she uh… learned how to use muggle cards very quickly these past few month. I have taken the liberty to report the card stolen so that at least you won’t be responsible for a portion of her spending spree.”

“Thank you.”

“As for the rest we will be paying you back in instalments-“

“You don’t-!”

“Yes. We do.” Percy have given Harry a hard look, launching into a long explanation about magical law and Pureblood family honor that had Harry’s head spinning sickeningly.

It had been horrible, because Harry felt that the Weasleys, who had been the only real family he had ever known, should not have to suffer for Gin’s addiction, but the way Percy had described everything, in simple, almost clinical terms…

It felt a lot like as if Harry had stopped being family the moment he started dating Ginny, instead being downgraded by Purebred traditions to be more “potential” family until he married Ginny. A suitor instead of a son or brother. Someone who would be left bereft of family if he was no longer in Ginny’s life.

In the end it had been their daughter who had embarrassed and caused damage to a _suitor_ … not brother or son. Not someone who was actually a part of their family.

Not by blood. Not by adoption. No ring, no marriage, no family.

Harry wanted “reparations” even less than he wanted to see Gin ever again.

“How about you guys pay me back by going to Grimmauld Place and picking out valuable possessions to sell off until the sum of her tab is paid? Kreature… passed away peacefully in his sleep after we held Regulus’s funeral as you have probably heard, so there is… no one left of the Black family to truly object. Well- Malfoys might, but to honor Sirius I’ve been looking into stripping the place down and remodeling everything… have a completely clean slate to decide what to do next with it. After you guys are finished selling off a share to pay off Ginny’s tab I’ll hire curse breakers to take out the rest of the stuff, labor to strip down the wallpaper and maybe add in muggle electric lights… move the kitchen up from the basement to make it… actually livable.”

Percy had gotten a funny look on his face. “Are you going to sell the whole townhouse?”

“Maybe? I mean there is a reason why I’ve been staying either here or with Andromeda instead of hiding out there. Without Kreature around it’s downright hazardous. Maybe I can sell it to a squib if I put electricity in and remodel a little or maybe I’ll end up living there, or maybe one of you will end up living there if you’re interested in taking it off my hands, I don’t know. I do know that it needs to cleaned out completely though. The mold has evolved sentience.”

“I’ll set you up with a reputable contractor who specializes in cursed magical dwellings.”

“Thank you.”

“If we hire them now then they’ll likely finish in time for when you get back from your extended vaca-“ Percy had stopped, looked at Harry knowingly, as if he could for a split second see into Harry’s very soul and revised himself.

“It will be there _if_ you are ever back in the UK.”

If.

Not when.

If.

There had been something about that that rung so clear inside of Harry all other thoughts went silent for several heartbeats. Ringing through his very core like a small but loud Tibetan bell in a quiet temple. Enlightenment of sorts, no thoughts, no internal analyzations, that one word simply spoke to Harry as unquestionable truth that did not require thinking.

_He would not return._

It sang in his bones like a prayer.

The rest of the questions had been awkward, but once they were through Harry was free to pack up his things and go shopping with Hermione for travel supplies at a travel agency who would book him to stay in a very nice long-term tourist lodging for the duration of his stay in Spain.

It was… so very simple to pack. The sum of Harry’s worldly possessions did not add up to much, in fact a bulk of it ended up being things that were newly acquired because, depressingly enough, the bulk of what had still been in his trunk were school supplies accumulated over six years and very little of that would actually help Harry with living an adult life.

It had been so depressing to realize that the sum of his education could only be put to use for a Ministry job and for killing enemies but not for things adults need to know. Like balancing personal budgets, how to live a life that did not revolve around working for a shop or the Ministry, how to find an interest that would make the former child soldier happy, how to find a hobby that did not revolve around hunting Death Eaters…

It was the very beginning of a very long, slow crisis of identity that Harry quietly examined whenever he was alone. It was horrible to find that the sum of what Harry could ever find as essential for his life from all those years spent at Hogwarts as an adult was the potions kit and his broom.

And he couldn’t brew dittany to save his life… let alone to keep on his person to save Snape.

Snape who’s life could have been spared if Dumbledore had publicly broken that stupid wand instead of forcing Snape to kill him. Snape who could have lived on to become a hero.

Snape, who gave and gave and tried so hard all of his life, only to be thrown away like a used tissue. To only be given recognition by Harry when no one else could bother to care about the Slytherin who was unpopular, from the wrong family background. It was a sad story.

Yet then again this was probably why Dumbledore had wanted Harry to die, despite being so surprised that Harry was still alive but… just visiting at the station, the crossroads between here and there. Dumbledore didn’t see harry as a person but a character in a story, something to be used to further his cause but not as long as Harry could live long enough to become a liability.

It was a horrible thought to have, and both Hermione and Ron would likely berate Harry for thinking ill of such a grand hero even after Harry had _initially_ forgiven him everything and had thought, just for a few bewildered days after the final battle, that it had all been necessary and Dumbledore could do no wrong.

After the third funeral he attended where the deceased had been a child. A small pale body inside his coffin, and Harry was struck by the fact that nobody had evacuated the first-years, or sent them down with the non-Death Eater Slytherins.

Harry had asked himself a very dangerous question that day:

What would have happened if Voldemort had killed Harry in his first year?

Harry had been eleven. If Voldemort had restrained Harry or Harry had been unable to touch him with his bare skin-

It had struck Harry far too late that all of the answers to Dumbledore’s little “protective” measures had all been things the first-years were learning.

A trap for a mass murderer made inside a school.

Using a real philosopher’s stone as bate, that Riddle could have easily taken off of Harry’s corpse.

A trap to lure in a monster.

Inside a school filled with children.

Detention out in the woods…

Where the monster was killing unicorns.

Giant man-eating dog…

In school filled with children and Gryffindors.

None of the teachers, the ones who were supposed to protect them raised a finger in protest.

They did not raise a finger in protest against Lockhart, or how the fake Moody was treating children, or that Harry-the-under-aged-unable-to-legally-consent child was to fight for his life for entertainment in a tournament, did not protect children from Umbridge, gave up on Ginny when they thought her as good as snake food, never believed the children when trouble was around, never went out to help them or go in their stead when trouble brewed, relied on an underaged unable to legally consent child to become their weapon-…

Harry was never supposed to live. Harry the child was supposed to live an awful life, be brought into a magical realm he was supposed to fight for, and then die tragically at the right moment.

Neville had been the spare. The Pureblooded one who was probably supposed to carry onward and live, but never was because Harry-…

Harry refused to die.

Harry the child, the orphan, the half-blood, the sacrifice. The inconvenient non-Purebred orphan nobody but the Weasleys wanted, the one everyone said who looked like James but could never be as good as James, could never be James…

Could never be a Pureblood.

Even when Harry had still been alive in the crossroads train station on the boarder to the afterlife, Dumbledore still wanted him to die. Still wanted Harry to be tempted to leave forever and give up, just like he had planned in Harry’s horrible fifth and sixth years where Dumbledore had been particularly unhelpful, cold, and mean. Took Harry alone to a death trap inside a cave filled to the brim with inferi without any backup or anybody knowing where they were, where they were both supposed to die.

And Harry had forgiven the bastard!

It hurt.

It hurt a lot remembering and thinking back on everything with a critical mind. Of not just blindly accepting it or making excuses, just… laying it all out with the mind that Dumbledore had been the adult who was supposed to protect the children, and Harry the child whom he wanted to kill.

Harry who was supposed to die alone and scared.

Harry whom his mother had given up her life and magic to save.

The prophecy said nothing about Harry having to die, Dumbledore just… thought him living too inconvenient.

And nobody questioned him.

It had hurt enough that after that fateful funeral Harry had quietly begun pulling away from a majority of the adults in his life. Which was not hard, given that most of the ones he loved the most were dead. Harry had visited Hagrid still though, he just could not stay away from sweet, comforting Hagrid.

So Harry encouraged Hagrid to maybe write to that French woman he had been sweet on during the tournament. Just to say that he was still alive and such.

Inadvertently that had ended up with Hagrid moving to France because apparently the French lady had missed him as well. Harry had been so relieved that day he had seen Hagrid off.

But Harry hadn’t been allowed the chance to fully come to terms with it all. Ginny had made it impossible for Harry to concentrate on anything but her.

It was beyond not fair! It was downright malicious what Ginny had done to him!

After Harry finally found himself free of Ginny Andromeda helped him come to terms with James, and she did not judge him or turn him away. She had cursed James’s name when she discovered Harry was biologically female, but other than a renewed vigor to put Harry in all the dresses Tonks had refused to wear over the years, nothing had changed on that front. He was still Teddy’s godparent, he’d still be seeing the two of them because they were going to follow him to Spain after a week or two of him being on his own. The only difference now was that Andromeda was going to teach Harry about important witch things that are passed down from mother to daughter and in Hogwarts’s dorms.

And wearing dresses might be involved. Harry did not know what that would be like, but seeing as how he hadn’t had the brain power to properly… process everything he was willing to give it a try. Better than letting his brain drift in and exhausted daze at the very least.

Amazing how little damns Harry felt he could give about something that really should have been freaking him out.

There were no adults left after that, aside from the Arthur and Molly, that Harry could honestly say he felt safe to be around.

Bit awkward now though. After Ginny.

They still treated him as if he were one of their own but Ginny’s volatile attitude added with her sudden and complete departure from her family felt like something like a death, or even worse than a death in the family. They chose to side with Harry because Ginny had been killing him, but her leaving without so much as a letter to any of them or even a kind word, an apology…

They were all grieving. Furious because she was still alive and putting them through this, but grieving with no means for closure.

Honestly Harry had been grieving too, if it weren’t for Ginny’s potions controlling him Harry thinks he would have left ages ago.

But it would have been less painful, if Ginny had never dosed him, because then Harry could return regularly because he still would have had _a family_. He would have been the adopted Weasley sibling, not the perfect suitor whom their daughter had embarrassed the family name in front of.

Staring down at the emptiness of his trunk, had hit Harry in a low gut-punch kind of way. Maybe Dumbledore wanted Harry to die, like Snape, like Sirius, like Harry’s mum, and James, all pawns to be shucked aside when they were no longer useful, because he knew, somehow, that Harry Potter was a lie.

Dumbledore knew lots of things, even if he never used most of his knowledge for the benefit of making Harry’s life less horrible. Voldemort may not have understood what love was, but to be fair neither did Dumbledore, after all look at how the man had treated his own brother. Dumbledore wanted Harry to become a story and you couldn’t have a story if the hero lived.

Harry was too human to be the perfect hero everyone wanted.

But if Harry died then Harry could become like James: just a figment of the collective imagination built around someone who had lived once. A nice story to tell without the human coming in and being too flawed and ruining the mental image. Taking away the magic with reality.

Harry wondered if Dumbledore had known Ginny slipped him potion.

Probably not, but if he did he likely didn’t care so long as Harry was with a Gryffindor.

It wasn’t like it had mattered to Dumbledore, Harry may have survived a lot of things but Dumbledore clearly had been waiting for _something_ to get lucky and take Harry out sooner or later.

Yet Dumbledore had died and Harry had lived despite all the odds and the man’s best efforts.

The others, who did not want Harry dead but wanted their Savior, had wanted Harry to be an Aurar. Wanted Harry to continue being their child soldier, to hunt down the bad guys so that they never had to. Be the big publicity boost and the replacement for their favorite charming Pureblooded prankster James Potter despite the fact that he was actually pants at being an Aurar. Good at being a thug but not… an upholder of the law. Not someone who came from the wrong background or the wrong Hogwarts house could safely run to.

But they expected Harry to be better than that so that they could pretend. Have Harry marry a girl whom they all said looked like Harry’s mum, despite Ginny not looking like his mum at all really, but they said she did, they _pretended_ she did, because James Potter had married a pretty redhead and this time was better because Ginny was a Pureblood and therefore one of _them_ instead of being an admirable but mostly pretty forgettable stranger in a strange land.

Ginny, whom Harry was never actually in love with, but went along with it because of the potions and had it felt so good at first to be accepted as completely normal for once.

An acceptable Purebred Potter.

God, despite being on the side of the light all the real problems still seemed to revolve around those stupid Pureblooded ideas that the world revolved around them.

If it weren’t for Ginny’s potions Harry would have left the day of that funeral. Had this depressing realization while he stared at he almost empty trunk sooner. Been allowed to process his grief and rebuild his life but with his family-...

…The Weasleys couldn’t be part of his life anymore. Harry could not make them choose between him and Ginny.

Harry didn’t even really want to keep his new wand. The one Ginny had gotten him after she received her compensation pay from the Ministry.

So he didn’t. He searched through his mother’s things, found her wand and put that carefully by his bedside to look at for comfort while he put the wand Ginny had given him back into the very box it had been bought in and wrapped it neatly in brown paper and twine. Writing to Ginny in an attached letter that the flat was pre-paid for the next three years but after that Ginny was on her own. Grocery money would not be included. Harry refused to fund her Booze habit. He was very clear about that.

He sent it off to the flat in secret when no one else but Harry and Percy’s owl was in the apartment, told the bird to just leave it without waiting for a reply and Harry would pay handsomely in return for the round trip.

A private final dismissal as Harry got rid of the last scrap of Ginny from his life.

If anybody noticed Harry using a different wand they didn’t comment on it.

Harry had asked ‘Mione for a book on wand making and an easy one to read for daily potions that would be necessary for an adult wizard to brew by himself, to which Harry received half a dozen tomes she had picked up while she had been off restoring her parent’s memories. Telling Harry that she’d like it a lot if he got to meet them and of course he’d be welcome to stay with them in Australia if he was ever in the neighborhood!

It felt a little like Hermione had just adopted him. Which made him cry with a sort of fearful relief in the middle of the night once he got the chance to think it over. He may be losing Ron but Harry still had Hermione.

Harry knew that in the background he had missed over a dozen appointments with various Ministry obligations that he was supposed to attend. That he missed the date he was supposed to begin attending the sit-down-not-physically-taxing part of Aurar training and Ron was in the hot seat for refusing to say a thing other than Harry’s personal life was no one else’s business. Despite there being witnesses of Harry being all bloodied and clearly fleeing form _something_. Despite the fact that his little sister was spotted off who knew where and doing who knew what, and there had been witnesses from Harry’s neighbors saying some very shocking things.

Other people wanted to see Harry, to know if he was alright, but by then Harry no longer looked like James and the Weasleys all seemed to know that Harry could not handle the backlash that was sure to come if the others were made aware of his biology. By then it seemed to have become pretty obvious to the whole family that James was not Harry’s biological father.

…That or Harry declaring he was going to get out of the country as soon as Poppy cleared him for travel made people just assume that Harry did not want to speak to anyone. One could never tell with Purebreds whether or not they’d bother to be perceptive or just brush it off as nothing.

Harry was vaguely aware that all of the papers were going into fits over tantalizing tidbits of a scandal that Skeeter was likely frantically trying to piece together, watching out for where Harry should be showing up like a hawk but never finding him because without the paternity potion there to suppress Harry’s magic and hormones Harry’s appearance had changed so drastically that not even Draco Malfoy recognized him when Harry took the trouble to hand him a personal letter of thanks for taking him directly to Poppy.

Harry felt he had to thank Malfoy. Wrote him a whole thank you letter that went on for a few pages because Harry felt that Draco kind of deserved to know at least the gist of what was going on and that Harry was having to completely overhaul Draco’s mother’s family’s former townhouse because it was hazardous and if his mother wanted to keep anything in particular she should contact Percy. Kind of apologized for that incident when they first met and also Harry kind of wanted to get back at Dumbledore so he told Draco that Dumbledore had his man tell Harry as a small child that Slytherins and the Malfoys had killed his parents and were out to gut him while he slept, and that the sorting hat had actually wanted to put Harry in Slytherin all along and complained bitterly about it even to this day that Harry wouldn’t let it out of fear.

Harry wanted to give Draco at least a little bit of vindication, for saving Harry, for being the only one who was not so overly biased that he had been able to notice Harry’s breath smelled of love potion and Harry’s actions were a classic case of being dosed with love potion.

That Draco Malfoy was the only one to take one look at how miserable and frightened Harry was and do something about it instead of standing back and doing nothing because the others thought it was “none of their business”. Who stood up for Harry, and got pissed off because Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin cunning came up with over a dozen theories and deduced very quickly (according to Hermione) that Ginny had to have started dosing Harry in school, because to a Slytherin Harry’s sudden crush in the midst of a fuck ton of hellish things going on made zero sense.

Harry explained that Ginny acted alone and that she had threatened to bring her whole family down with her if Harry tried to run off on her. That she was suffering from a lot of mental problems since the war and had a bit of a warped idea that it was her duty to marry Harry and preserve his family line and that it was her duty to turn Harry into the sort of man everybody else wanted him to be because in her eyes the Harry in reality was not up to scratch to being The Savior or James Potter’s son. He wanted to make clear to Draco Malfoy that all was fine now and to ask that he please not give the Weasleys any more grief because they had essentially just lost their daughter for taking Harry’s side and protecting him from her.

Poppy had told him that with the few (far too few) published sources on paternity potions it was possible for someone with latent shapeshifting powers (like how Harry had grown back his hair as a child), or just very good concentration could change their appearance to a limited degree. The potion already paved the way to hiding one’s appearance, the magic in the body would remember to a lesser degree how one had looked like with the potion in full effect much like muscle memory.

…Or it could be used to change oneself into who they looked like without the potion’s influence…

So Harry had stood in front of the bathroom mirror while Percy had gone off to work and practiced and practiced shifting between being a boy and a girl until Harry was even more unrecognizable in case he ran into any Weasleys while he was out.

McGonagall had employed Draco as a brewer for the infirmary and just a general handyman as part of Draco’s penance for the whole Death Eater thing. Harry hadn’t found the punishment very fair since Draco never murdered anyone and he never actually committed any crimes of his own free will, but… well… Harry was one of some very few voices.

Harry can’t help but wonder what Draco Malfoy had noticed of Harry as Harry’s life spiraled into a nightmare and he kept having to visit Poppy with increasing frequency.

Harry catches Draco pensively collecting some kind of water plant from the lake at the base of the castle using a long pole and metal hook. Harry tries not to think too closely about how he had intuitively known Malfoy would be there, though Harry did take some satisfaction in the way the boy jumped with an unmanly yelp when he turned around to find a strange girl in muggle clothes holding out a thick envelope toward him expectantly.

"Harry Potter sent me. He wanted to give you a thank you for saving his life."

“Couldn’t bother giving this to me himself?” Malfoy had said, disgruntled as he accepted the offered letter. “Or are the Weasleys forbidding him from going out by himself without their supervision?” He added with a sharp look.

Harry got the impression that the harried look in Ron’s eye as he’d been mumbling horrid things about Draco Malfoy may have been due to Draco accusing his family of all being in on the love potion thing.

“He has already left the country.” Harry had said cheerfully, knowing that it would get circulated around. “Said something about being tired of people trying to kill him, lie to him, or to use him as a pawn in politics and in boosting their own popularity. He said he would have had the balls to face you in person but he wanted to get out before the paparazzi could rally themselves.”

Draco squinted down at Harry. Even more than usual since Harry had shrunk half a foot. “…And you are…?”

“Charlie Weasley’s friend. Staying with his brother while I pick my life back together after a bad break-up. Currently just here to help tie up loose ends and give mister Potter a head’s start before people realize he’s flown the coop.”

Harry doesn’t know why he said all of that, but it helped to speak the truth inside of a lie, and it sure as hell shut Draco up.

“Uh.” Malfoy had blinked, hard, leaning down even further as if attempting to place a name to her face.

“Hm?” Harry had blinked up at him with his most I-am-innocent-I-swear expression.

“S-so sorry to hear about that… er… Miss?”

“Harriet Evans.”

“Harri-…et… Miss Evans.”

“Yes.”

Malfoy had inhaled deeply, chewing on the inside of his cheek as his eyes widened in bewilderment, most likely steeling himself for having to waste his time speaking to someone of unknown breeding.

That or he knew it was Harry, somehow, though given how dimwitted Purebloods could be Harry doubted the feeling in his head that was screaming that he’d been found out.

“The person who dosed Potter with amortentia, why has there been no issue for her arrest?”

“Because arresting her would result in more problems for innocent people than it would to catch her and shove her off into a mental care facility for some much needed therapy and rehabilitation. Because she had sent Harry Potter a letter threatening to humiliate him and drag her own family’s reputation down with her if he didn’t do as she said.” Harry had huffed a little tersely. “You know how much grief whole family reputations get if-… one family member decides to do something awful because she didn’t think that Harry Potter was acting enough like what she thought Harry Potter was supposed to act like.”

“Is that why she tried to kill him with a poison?” Malfoy demanded, oddly furious.

“Overdose.” Harry had said unintendedly. Biting both lips to keep anything else from slipping out.

“I would think that just one drop of amortentia would be enough! Who would be stupid enough to give him so much he’d overdose?”

“No. It wasn’t enough.” Harry relented, just slightly because it would not do to have Malfoy calling out that someone had tried to murder the Savior. “No amount of potions would have ever been enough. She wanted someone who never existed. She wanted an idealized fairytale version of who James Potter was supposed to become if he were to be allowed to live. She wanted a hot sex machine, and a famous husband. She did not want Harry the person, she wanted a fairytale happy ending, and even under the influence of the potion Potter had known he could never be the mythical prince charming she desperately tried to turn him into. So each time he resisted she kept dosing him, possibly wondering why her fool-proof potion wasn’t working. She didn’t mean to almost kill him, she just wanted to… cure him of being an ugly imperfect human in her eyes.”

“Potter is the **_least_** ugliest person I have ever met.” Malfoy had said with such conviction that Harry’s brain shut down on him.

“Well… she wanted James Potter. I think. Harry doesn’t look much like James anymore. Grew out of it… and you know… he was malnourished and that changes how people look.”

“Delusional.” Malfoy sniffed with an ugly press of his lips into a familiar scowl. “Downright mad to the core.”

“Thus the therapy.” Harry stressed. “Her family took his side. Nursed him back to health, helped him escape. It’s all already taken care of without a whole lot of press.”

“I’ll say!” Malfoy had said with a very familiar squaring of the shoulders he always did right before he was about to open his mouth for more unpleasant things.

Harry knew he had already said more than enough given that Draco did have the power now to destroy the Weasley’s. Harry didn’t think he would at the moment after Harry had assured him of their innocence, but Harry also wasn’t keen on being discovered as being Harry Potter in this form.

Since Harry would need to be able to not be recognized if he ever wanted to be free.

“He just wanted to make sure you got his thank you letter. Bye!” Said Harry before popping away.

Just like that. Apparated away without even thinking about it.

It wasn’t until nearly half a second later that Harry realized that he had not been at an apparition point and spent the rest of the week wondering how the hell he had done that. Granted, it wouldn’t be the first time he had done something he should not be physically able to do with magic, but it would be nice if it weren’t so startling every time he learned how to do something new.

Harry didn’t say anything about it though. He was leaving very early in the morning on Thursday before the sun was even up and he had to say his goodbyes.

Most of the family were told that it had been stress that had interfered with Harry’s recovery, so they all seemed to understand why he had to get out of the country in order to find some semblance of peace. They even held a small party for him because Harry couldn’t remember his last birthday and was still sort of having trouble processing that he was nineteen and not eighteen or seventeen.

It was a kind of a sad party though. Given everything that had happened.

Ron had it the worst of them all. Ron looked like an absolute mess when it was time for Harry to depart with all of his worldly belongings packed away inside one half-filled rucksack and his old school trunk. Openly grieving with tears and everything as he hugged Harry goodbye and watched him get onto the train.

Harry thinks that they both knew in that moment that _Harry Potter_ the- **boy** -who-lived would never return.

The ride over felt downright euphoric. Harry had never left the country before, or been on vacation, or even had been allowed to just appreciate the ocean. It was like running away from all the bad things that had ever happened to him and…

He never wanted to look back.

The first thing Harry had done when he arrived at his destination was to buy a postcard to send back so that Ron didn’t worry, but found himself at a loss of what to write.

So instead Harry bottled Ron a memory of Harry walking through the cobbled streets of an old stone Spanish village. For Hermione he pressed an interesting looking flower into a blank card and drew a smiley face beside it.

The day after Harry sent his letters he finally got up the nerve to apparate to a cliff overlooking the sea. Elder wand in hand.

To which he promptly snapped it into several little pieces and wrapped three piles of the remains into white tissue paper (because it would dissolve harmlessly in water), where Harry took the first one and levitated it as far out to sea as he could manage.

He then apparated to two more locations that were by the sea and repeated the same process two more times, on the last throw he gave the general location of where the packet of broken wand had went a two-fingered salute before making a leisurely walk down to the nearest café.

While he was there he had found a poster written in English and Spanish looking for people willing to pose nude for an art class. Getting into a conversation with a couple of passing Uni students about it because he had never heard about that kind of thing before.

After listening to them talk about it Harry had figured he may as well. If only because he was in a vindictive mood and the expressions on any wizard’s faces would be hilarious if he were to buy the resulting artwork and send it to Skeeter.

Harry never did this of course. It was just fun to dream.

He did however take up the job as nude art model. If only because he was told that people with body image issues would benefit from it, and it gave him something to do for the rest of the year until Autumn rolled around.

Bet Ginny wouldn’t be able to brag that she had seen the Savior naked if he took away the special significance of that. Not in a destructive way but in a healthy way, one where Harry got to define himself and what he did with his own body rather than someone else making that decision for him. He’d have to see how it felt to determine whether or not he wanted to keep it up, but it had to be better than being seen as nothing but a piece of meat. He had spent the past year and a half hiding himself out of shame, and he had been frightened to even go out without makeup or to be in his female form to hide himself from the world.

Harry was tired of being made to feel shame for how he looked and acted. If he wanted to reveal his male body to someone else it would be by his own terms.

And it would not be the spitting image of James Potter either. Just Harry. 100% Harry and nothing else.


	3. Wizarding CSI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Wizarding London's messed up definitions of consent are very messed up and no one has bothered to ask those who had been on the wrong end of things.
> 
> Severus Snape follows some clues.  
> Poppy isn't impressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snape's a drama queen with issues.

“Her whole family were here you know. Trying to break down them wards by the sound of it. An all-out intervention bless them. She did somethin’ to the door an’ it never opened again though the landlord has tried every spell she can find. Flew out the window on her fancy broom that she made him buy like a bat outta hell she did! Saw her myself!”

“Did she now.” He speaks his disguised face exaggerating his expression.

“As far as I know she’s never come back. I’ll bet she doesn’t even know that he’s kindly paid for the rent and any damage she may have done, though Marlene is determined to send the little terror a bill for costs anyway since the lease will be up in three weeks from now.” Gossips the neighbor.

“Three weeks you say.”

“He had always been so sweet, I’m glad she’s at least out of his life. If I hadn’t checked her myself I would’ve sworn she had been a vampire or some sort of monster that feasts upon someone’s life force. He had been so ill that sometimes he’d collapse, or he’d have to curl up in the hallway just to get away from her. Nearly killed him she did! He was always cleaning up after her, doing her laundry, cooking her food, a house elf is how she treated ‘im! Acted as if him being sick was an insult against her an’ refused to help him when he needed it most. So much for Gryffindor loyalty eh?”

“…”

It had been simple for him to slip in through the flat’s window once he’d been given the benefit of the early morning fog to hide his form. It was his luck that one particular window in particular had been left unlocked.

The one room flat itself was unimpressive, looking an awful lot like a Gryffindor dorm room during an elf strike. Though to be fair it could have also been ransacked by the rest of the Weasley clan at some point, though he would hardly be able to tell given that pampered teenagers had once lived in the space. Likely, if Potter had been the one to keep house, he had either been too sickly to get it done properly even with magic, or even more likely Miss Weasley had trashed the place in the weeks following Potter’s departure from the premises.

Given the number of takeout containers with fossilized remnants of food strewn about Severus was leaning more towards the latter theory. Oh look, a family of mice have moved in.

Yuck.

The far side of the room where the front entrance had been half startles him, but after a long moment of staring he elects to deal with it later.

Normally he would have left everything as it was so as to not arouse suspicion, but given that the owners of the flat have clearly never returned and he really, _really_ did not desire to work around all of the garbage that someone had been too lazy to banish like a civilized witch whose mother he knew for an absolute fact had raised her to know better.

Thank god for magic, all he had to do was flick his wand around and the dust was banished, the garbage was gotten rid of, the mice ejected out the window onto the street where some screaming soon followed (oops), the dirty clothes imbued with the scent of vomit and ethanol which had been left strewn about he hit with s _courgify_ to get rid of the smell, discovered that his theory about only Miss Weasley having made the mess was correct when he only found her clothing and other decidedly tomboy feminine artifacts strewn about but nothing that seemed to be Potter’s.

In fact… there is still two sealed boxes with a pointed note affixed atop of the smallest one where Potter expressly states that the contents of which is the last of the things that Ginevra had ever given him or had coerced him into buying for himself that he was returning to her due to desiring to cut her influence entirely out of his life.

He shrinks those down and pockets them to bring back to Minerva for she would desire that Potter’s things not be sold to the highest bidder once the lease is up. For Miss Weasley’s personal effects he spends some time separating everything into neat piles for easy transport once the lease was up and everything still inside was seized.

All things considered the girl could use a healthy dose of karma to have her knickers be sold at auction.

The dark stain he uncovered on the carpet near the bathroom caught his eye, namely for the fact that he was half afraid to discover what substance had left it. You could never tell with drunks, they tended to violently expel all sorts of foul bodily liquids, or they would bring something unmentionable home with them. Ma was forever having to clean up after da, and he still had scars on his feet for forgetting to put on his shoes that one time he had judged it safe to sneak past where da had lain unconscious so that he could use the loo. Thankfully, there did not seem to be any glass shards embedded in the carpet but he was certainly going to check his boots over thoroughly before he made his way indoors anywhere in case he might track it with him.

If it had been anyone else he would have covered the stain back up and given it a wide berth. However, as a Potions Master he knew all too well how a determined Dark Wizard could make use of bodily stains in rituals.

It could be a wine stain… or it could not. Most likely it was wine or some other dark red spirit she had spilled. Likely he was just being paranoid and after casting a few spells he will find that the effort was merely a waste of ti-

Blood. The spell indicated.

Another flick, another intricate incantation.

Human.

His brows rise to his hairline.

Naturally, given that she seemed to be the direct cause for the darling golden boy of the wizarding world to leave his adoring public, and the fact that she was the female out of the two of them… as well as having been generally unlikable with her caustic personality. Ginevra was fairly demonized to most wizarding citizens who had been in the general vicinity of… her person. Villainized in general, but to those who had been around to act as witnesses there was a distinct demonic theme to their descriptions of her.

And perhaps he is guilty of the same faults given none seemed to know the full story though he prided himself on not basing his assumptions solely on her gender. He had seen more of the girl from the ages of eleven through sixteen than even her own mother had seen of her own child. Oh yes, to Molly and Arthur this whole affair came completely out of the blue but Severus had seen trouble develop in that child since the very start. Parents never want to believe their precious children are capable of terrible things and they with bitch about teachers being too mean but the fact was that once by the end of the school year the parents have missed so much of their own children growing up that more often than not the child they get back for the summer is a stranger to them and they a stranger to their child. When they send their children to a boarding school parents quickly cease knowing their children at all.

Teachers know their children better than the parents, because teachers are the ones stuck raising the little brats! Severus had called it, he had known the girl had grown into a bully, he had seen her develop tendencies of the mentally mad, and now this!

This though… this was a lot of human blood to find on the floor. More than what could be justified by a bloody nose or a scrape.

Perhaps the demonic accusation was not unwarented.

He is standing in a crime scene.

Damn.

He should let the Aurars handle this.

If he were to cut out the section of carpet he’d be tampering with evidence (even further than he had already), if he removed the carpet section in order to conduct his own testing he’d get answers but he’d destroy any chance of justice being served in court-…

…Yet… if he were to let the Aurars handle it they’d only botch the whole thing and nothing constructive would come of it. The Ministry was no longer as dreadful as it had been during the war, however it still had not recovered from the sharp decline it had experienced from the war. Many promising reformers who had graduated from Hogwarts with full honors were quickly growing disillusioned by the outdated and ineffective systems that the Ministry still clung onto so stubbornly and most who did not have the family connections to ensure advancement had already left. Shops were doing much better with keeping their employees satisfied but most had to resort to shipping out orders internationally in order to stay afloat.

The Aurars had the lowest recruitment and lowest retention out of all of the departments. The older superiors alienated the younger officers into retirement or even quitting the training program altogether due to their refusal to abandon procedures that were far too reminiscent of, as one of Filius’s former students had put it, _Death Eater_ ideals.

As well as having developed a strong us versus them mentality which had eclipsed their oaths to serve and protect. It probably did not help that many left in charge were believed to have sided with the Dark during the war…

He heaves a heavy sigh.

He’d decide what to do after he had finished his search of the premises.

More mice were ejected from the window, and he could not help but think that the landlord might be able to cover the cost of renovating the whole flat given how many expensive items Miss Weasley had left behind. Potter had undoubtably gifted her all of them in true Potter family fashion to buy the love of their objects of affection.

Though that seemed to only make the situation worse for the younger Potter. Shame he had not used common sense to _not_ give a gold digger money sooner. It might have forced her to actually grow up.

Among the treasures were beautiful designer garments that would have looked lovely on a full-grown woman yet were wasted on the frame of a teenaged girl, some pieces of jewelry, most of which likely had never left the boxes they were bought in. The quidditch equipment for the career she had abandoned though, that is some top quality gear even all these years later, and the accompanying paraphernalia must have accumulated some value by now. Not precisely what he would define as _classy gifts for a lady_ but then again such concepts were not valued in the testosterone saturated Gryffindor dorms.

Hardly anyone save for her mother would ever have defined Ginevra Weasley as classy or a lady in the first place anyway. It is unsurprising that she would have wanted Potter to spend so much money on tacky bric-a-brac to feed her own ego as being some sort of quidditch star.

…The perfume bottles were of an oddly cheap brand, not to mention that their existence in this space is highly unusual in of itself. Ginevra had been quite vocal in her last year and three-ish months of school of her dislike of anything feminine to which she had deemed to be for only weaklings and whores.

Out of habit, that he did his best to hide from the world, he rolled up his sleeve and gave his wrists a small spritz so that he could inhale the lovely sce-

Severus stood, sniffing his perfumed wrist for what felt like eternity before bolting to the kitchen sink and thanking whatever divine being may be in existence that Potter had the sense to stock soap bars of the strength that could scrub the top dermis off of one’s skin if one were to scrub hard enough.

Grabbing a fistful of paper towel he holds the muggle paper product over his raw wrist after the stench finally, after much effort, finally had been scrubbed out. Turning to face the bottle as if it might attack him at any moment.

That was _not_ perfume!

He ends up slicing out a large square of soiled carpet and bagging it using the plastic muggle baggies Potter had on hand. Double bagging the perfume bottles just to be safe. Taking with him all of Potter’s soap bars for himself (they are top quality after all), before then surveying the flat.

There was not much else for him to look through. Neither had occupied the flat for even half-a- year and the majority of what Miss Weasley had contributed to the flat had been trash.

The front door however, or where it had once been, was now a haphazardly rectangle of globby plaster with a knob and hinges sticking out and all of the furniture save for the bed having been stacked against it.

He deliberated on whether he should leave it be. Also deliberating on whether he should toss her clothing and remaining effects across the whole flat or-…

He’d leave it in a pile in the corner. She had fled the country, it was not as if it would be unbelievable that she had thrown everything she could not take into a pile in the corner, The jewels in their boxes-

“To my beloved Willis… sincerely, Prewett- this is her mother’s heirloom!”

Giving the other boxes a second look they were all indeed lovely, well-cared for, but _old_. Many having engravings of names or small family crests on the backs from the Prewett line from back before they had lost their fortunes.

Severus, for a lack of anything better to do, glared up at the ceiling as he pocketed the jewels as well, deciding to save time so as not to lose the fog that would cover his escape he shrunk down all of the furniture stacked against the door and knocked off the globs of plaster (banishing the mess as he did so because the dust made him sneeze) so that he could verrry carefully use spells to slice through whatever it was that Miss Weasley had put between the cracks of the door. Not enough to fully open it, but at the very least weaken whatever was there.

Minerva was overjoyed by his thoughtfulness to return Potter’s former things as well as allow Minerva the chance to give Molly back her family heirlooms. The whole family had been stubbornly silent about where Harry Potter had disappeared off to, and Granger no longer lived within the country, with the jewels Minerva hoped to extend an olive branch that would lead someone in the family to talk to the rest of the Order about how they could contact their beloved golden boy.

Severus was not so optimistic.

Poppy did allow Severus a saved sample of Potter’s blood to compare to the carpet stain. In fact he had not needed to ask, she merely heard about what he was using the laboratory for and handed the vial over.

A perfect match.

“I still cannot divulge what transpired. He is safe now. If that helps.”

“Have you heard from him?” Severus demands. “Recently?”

“He sends cards for holidays. No return address.”

“How decidedly unhelpful you have been.”

“The war is over, shouldn’t we all be allowed the chance to move on with our lives? Be afforded the basic human right to not be conscripted by others to be little more than an object in a petty game of politics played by old men who hide behind children and impressionable youths to fight their battles for them? Harry has already suffered enough. Albus is dead, your secret society now an irrelevant relic of the war, the days of action and intrigue are long over, now there is nothing but moving forward.” Poppy counters with serene unapologetic tones. “How much longer will you hold out Severus? Before you look around yourself and realize that you are now free to live without a master or to act as protector to a child who has now grown up and forged a life of their own?”

…This had been a good question. One Severus had often asked himself in recent months.

Yet…

Potter had won the war, defeated the most dangerous dark wizard in living history (according to the magical Ministry in London, for many who were old enough to recall Grindelwald had never been to the continent during his reign of terror, and the ones who were had perished during the most recent two wizarding wars), he had taken an acceptable Gryffindor Purebred Weasley to presumably become his future wife and mother to his children to preserve the Potter line, he did not require to finish his schooling to have his pick of any job he desired in the Ministry, and it was rumored to be a high possibility that he would become Minister of Magic or even Head Warlock himself in a few short years.

Harry Potter had been given the most perfect life opportunities handed to him on a golden platter. Everything any wizard in the world could have ever wanted were his for the taking.

Yet the boy had snubbed it and left the country quietly without leaving a trace.

To be fair, his relationship with Ginevra Weasley had clearly soured in a spectacular way. The official universally agreed story seemed to revolve around some combination of Ginevra having a string of illicit affairs behind Potter’s back ever since school and had only desired him for his money and fame, her hubris soon dissolving into thinking that she could get away with acting unladylike with her drinking, partying, and fooling around behind Potter’s back. It was an established fact that Potter had come out of the war extremely ill due to having to hide in the wilderness for a year with very little food to eat and reportedly being so noble as well as stupid that he had given most of his own food rations to his friends so that they would not starve. This chronic illness seemed to be a driving force behind much of Ginevra’s discontent seeing as how he, as was to have been expected to anyone with half a brain given his condition, tired easily and was prone to spending his free time resting or being looked after by others since he had stretches of time in which he could not care for himself.

Therefore not at all fun to have around for a young extroverted young woman with vivacious appetites for partying and vices such as alcohol and sexual intercourse.

Though there was a rather large hole in such accusations: namely in the fact that Ginevra had spent the majority of her time being schooled inside the walls of Hogwarts, and much of the rest in her childhood home under the watchful eye of Molly Weasley who would not be having with such nonsense under her own roof. There was not much partying to be had in either place given how much work the students were being made to do to make up for a lost year of education as well as a nearly catastrophic decline in enrollment leaving the desiccated husk of a Ministry without very many options in the way of a competent workforce. The majority of the old one having been killed or had run off to save their own lives and refused to come back.

(It was amazing to realize just how much of the wizarding population had once consisted of muggleborns, squibs, and half-bloods with at least one muggle or squib parent. When they all went away and the Ministry’s coffers had been all but depleted through rampant corruption and the effort of attempting to make up for the lack of a workforce their absence could be keenly felt).

On top of that Ginevra was not well-liked enough by anyone to have had much of a social life at all.

Ginevra had become quite the infamous little starlet during the span of her brief affair with the adored Savior. She may have been a Gryffindor Purebred from a family that was one of the last few remaining of the sacred twenty-eight lineages, yet she was hardly what one would call… suitable as a choice in lover for the position of importance that Harry Potter had ascended to ever since he’d been a child. The role of future wife to such affluence was naturally, common sense really, expected to maintain certain airs, in public at least. Elegance, intelligence, beauty, poise, well-cultured, good taste in clothing, and other such positive attributes.

Ginevra appeared to have possessed none of these qualities. Though the relationship between herself and Harry Potter had been kept largely private the few times there had been documented unscripted public outings with one another usually accompanied some sort of scandal or another, and even when Harry Potter was not around increasingly Ginevra had no issue in generating scandal all on her own.

Largely the press surrounding Ginevra had at first been to note the lack of an engagement ring on her finger, then it had been to criticize the large number of freckles peppering her skin and how she had chosen to wear fine dresses to formal events that had been… rather ill-suited for a girl still in the throes of awkward adolescence where she was all muscle hanging off of a frame she had yet to grow into. When paired to Potter’s own well-tailored robed appearance she resembled more of a child playing dress-up in adult clothing rather than an adult herself.

Which, given her age, was not inaccurate. Seventeen may be the age of legal adulthood but for many it took until their twenties until they fully grew into an adult form. Ginevra Weasley had looked about fourteen, her genes making her appear younger than most teenagers her age.

Of course at Ministry events where she hung off of Potter’s arm she was noted for her distinct lack of elegance or poise. She did have a _sort of_ teenaged beauty (if one was into infants), but that was undercut by her inability to form intelligent conversation and her _lack_ of culture rather shined through… though why this was a shock to many was a mystery given that, aside from her childhood home, she had spent the majority of her life in and around Hogwarts with the occasional, rare chaperoned visit to magical London. Her grades were very good but aside from completing her assignments she had not shown an outstanding understanding of any of the subject material. She did not exhibit any interests outside of school sports and mooning after Potter, and other than her pursuit of becoming the next Mrs. Potter she had little to no ambitions for her future other than perhaps quidditch.

The hex she had invented was certainly… creative… however the nature of her bat-bogey spell wasn’t particularly sophisticated. Nor mature. Childish really. Hardly something to brag about, and Severus would know since it is one of his specialties to craft new spells. Such a spell was not professional grade let alone anything that would outshine the accomplishments of her older siblings.

While her older twin brothers had done very well for themselves in marketing their own childish nature, Ginevra did not have that level of charisma, nor the motivation to pull it off.

Or any sort of charisma, if the society inquirers were to be believed. Mostly spent all evening with a drink in her hand, a disinterested scowl on her face as she gave most the cold shoulder unless they were in the mood to discuss quidditch all night.

She had been boorish, violent, uncultured, rude, drunk, very drunk, and in photographs it was very clear that she had little to no experience with applying makeup or doing her own hair up in ways that were flattering.

Which… was only to be expected of a teenager from the Gryffindor dorm where sports and acting boorish was seen as admirable traits while elegance a weakness to be mocked relentlessly as Ginevra had often done to Miss Brown in school. Of course where she had been criticized, Potter had been disproportionately praised despite likely falling into all of the same pitfalls save for where clothing was concerned since he seemed to have at least possessed the sense to request that his tailor make all of the judgements necessary to make Potter appear his best rather than seeing a dress that some other celebrity had worn and chose to wear that regardless of how flattering it would look on her own childish figure.

They were both still young teenagers, so the lack of a ring was decidedly a wise decision on Potter’s part, especially given how their relationship had become increasingly scandalous with her habit of hexing others with painful intent at the drop of a hat and being caught in extremely compromising ways while getting completely sloshed.

While not Severus’s favorite individual in the world Severus is of the opinion that Potter deserved to have a vacation after such repeated and consistent embarrassments from the supposed love of his life. The boy had obviously been completely besotted by the walking catastrophe that was Ginevra and it was no secret at all, in fact there was quite a bit of documented photographic evidence, that showed how much her behavior hurt him.

Even so there was actually very little in the way of nitty gritty details when it came to their relationship as a whole. There was plenty of evidence that it had never gone well ever since the war had ended, plenty of other evidence that implied that Ginevra was turning into a right shameless gold digger as well, which was an expected general hazard for someone as affluent as Harry Potter with his connections and inherited wealth would always be having to deal with. Such was the price of having everything everyone else wanted for themselves. It attracted the ambitious and greedy like iron shaving to a magnet.

However… once again there were holes in this as well. Severus had watched the girl grow up and thus had largely only known Ginevra as the Weasley who was easily forgettable, even more so than her older brother Percival. Ginevra got passible grades but she was hardly what one would call outstanding or gifted when compared to her older brothers, Potter himself, and Granger. She was, by Gryffindor tradition, notoriously a bully towards everyone, especially to Slytherins, other female classmates in general, and Hufflepuffs, occasionally even to her own friends as Severus had been witness to on multiple occasions. She was the only girl produced out of the entire litter of Molly and Arthur’s brood, and aside from her brief run-in with the Beast of Slytherin as a first year her femaleness amongst the Weasley brood was the only characteristic that truly defined her as an individual. Not even her dating Harry Potter seemed to elevate her into the spotlight aside from drawing unwanted attention from the Carrows, for the most part when she stood next to her more talented and better known acquaintances and family she blended right into the background. She was socially active but, as her memories had revealed to him, that was not necessarily due to her own interests so much as it had been a means to an end toward gaining the attention of her intended target.

She had been a fan of Harry Potter… obsessed with him.

To an unhealthy degree.

This was… a fact that Severus felt guilty for not addressing when he had the opportunity.

He had protected her, as he had done with as many students as he could, he had used legilimency on Ginevra constantly in order to gain as much information as he could about what she knew so that he could use that information to keep the Carrows away from the students. He had even lightly manipulated her recent memories whenever it had been extremely necessary in order to make it seem to the Carrows as if Severus had claimed the girl for himself to lord over Potter and thus protected her from assault.

He could have easily missed it, for the memory had been irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If she had kept her focus on her mission he would have remained blissfully unaware of the fact that she had spiked Potter’s tea with a low-level potion she had bought from her brothers’ business.

…As it was… both Potter and her brief but repeated acts of drugging him was _always_ at the front of her mind. So much so that some days Severus had to actively search past the thick layers of memories that surrounded her obsession with the boy in order to find the information that was relevant to what he needed. When she had not been heroically ferrying students into the safety of the Room of Requirement or attempting to steal the Sword of Gryffindor she was in the library.

Looking up yearbooks so that she could stare at Potter’s face.

As a Potions Master Severus understood that as far as the concept itself went, slipping Potter a legally sold potion on sparse occasions to gain a little attention from the dunderhead was not… necessarily viewed as a bad thing. Goodness knows that such potions had saved many a marriage from going stale. Love potions, from a scientific standpoint, could not produce the genuine affection that Potter had seemed to possess for the girl. The fact that he was devoted to her even without the aid of the potion and it only required a little potion in order to gain her a great deal of attention from him on the occasion that he was being his usual thick-skulled self, did not raise any alarms. Many would argue that she had done the wise thing to dose him first to gauge whether he had any interest at all.

Infatuation potions of an incredibly weakened nature were not illegal, nor were they particularly strong enough to do anything the target had not been inclined toward in the first place. In order for the twin morons to openly sell such products on their shelves they would have been required to adhere to standards met by both the Potions Guild and the London Magical Shop Association.

If Potter had truly been repulsed he would have shook it off fairly quickly. There were many documented cases of the potion’s effects being fought off with ease though a combination of one’s own power of will and time. Potter, being a strapping healthy young man by that point was under no risk of any ill-effects. Of course Ginevra’s concern was valid given a muggle-raised urchin such as Potter might feel differently if he were to be made aware that he’d been given a infatuation potion that was classified under the broader scope of love potions. Lily had been horrified by the whole concept despite there being nuances, as did many other muggleborns that Severus had encountered during his lifetime.

Furthermore, there had been during that particular time no petty joy to be had in somehow informing the lad of such a fact, nor any benefit gained by warning the little fool of the dangerous ground he was treading in courting a fan of the rabid variety. Severus had known that Harry Potter had, through Albus’s cruelty, been sent upon a path that would lead to his death, and with him so too would Severus perish as punishment for not being able to do right by Lily even at the very end. What had been the point of interfering by exposing such a small thing in the grand scheme of things? Better to let the boy die having loved once than to fracture the illusion with something that someone like him who had been raised by muggles would never understand. It wasn’t as if Ginevra was going to be able to keep her famous boyfriend so what was the point?

Well Severus had at least been correct to predict that she would not end up marrying Potter…

At Severus’s own request his rescuers, in apology for doubting him, kept the fact of survival a secret. Hidden him first in Minerva’s childhood home and then within the walls of Hogwarts itself as he slowly healed. He had, throughout the course of the war, naturally taken regular doses of antivenom that he had designed himself. For the Dark Lord had cruelly magically mutated his familiar to produce copious amounts of venom in order to force her to give lethal bites at his command, the result of which left Nagini with perpetually swollen glands that forced her to nibble at things in order to relieve the painful pressure. It was not unheard of for her to bite someone and gnaw at their limbs, not to eat or kill but merely to express the fluid threatening to tear her fangs open, and she drooled trails of the stuff all along the floors and it Burned the skin.

Severus had lost count of the number of antivenom batches he had brewed. Some days he wondered if the blasted snake would be the one who ended up killing them all out of sheer desperation for relief.

Of course Severus being a fully grown wizard had honed his magic to a point to where it was… fit, or well exorcised to a point to where it could instinctually keep him from bleeding out completely. Wizards were resilient against physical damage and they healed quickly after all. It had been a combination of shock and an allergic reaction to the damn venom which left him unconscious for the remainder of the war. It was a blessing that those who found him had enough brains to know that a multiple hour old corpse left in the filth of the Shrieking Shack would have appeared extremely, without a doubt, to be thoroughly dead. Involving being half eaten starting with the soft bits like the eyeballs and genitals, the bowels ejecting what was left in the colon, blood pooling down due to gravity, the skin sliding off the bone, unpleasant smells and gasses- the gross realities of a dead corpse.

Instead Severus had reportedly looked in pristine condition as if he were merely asleep.

Which he had been.

A coma actually, from shock and mild hypothermia due to it being absolutely freezing.

Naturally Severus had more pressing concerns to worry about that did not involve Potter, or doing anything other than sleep, eat, and have to fight for the right to use the loo in privacy without anyone helping him. Aside from the arguments over the loo Severus was keen on getting well so that he could get the hell out of the country and attempt to move on with his life.

Then the boredom set in.

He had heard plenty from the senior staff’s excruciatingly long monologues about recent events to have been aware of Potter’s worryingly slow progress toward his own recovery, the big affair that transpired around Granger and Ronald’s biggest final break-up, Ginevra’s high and mighty attitude getting on the staff’s nerves, Draco being given a paid position to finish out his schooling while also doing community service, enrollment issues, and the like. Sadly it was the only form of entertainment Poppy allowed other than reading an assortment of novels donated to him from Pomona out of pity.

Eventually Severus had enough and began making slow excursions away from his private rooms, keeping his skills sharp and his mind occupied until Poppy finally had enough and conscripted him to go back to brewing for the infirmary.

The resulting solitude was welcomed after years of dealing with children and being despised on sight for merely existing. Of course brewing potions told him a great deal about Poppy’s patients even if he was unaware of who they were for. The nutrition supplements were, according to Pomona’s gossip, all for Potter and from the amount and variation Severus had to brew the boy was clearly getting worse, not better.

Increasingly the staff began complaining more often about Ginevra and how sad it was that Granger and Ronald weren’t reconciling and all Severus could do at the time was roll his eyes at the lack in variety of their gossip.

What had they expected? These were teenagers they were talking about here! The most shallow, flighty, and maddened stage of human development! It should have come to the shock of no one that the love affair of Ronald and Granger was doomed to fail from the very beginning, that Ronald’s sudden cold shoulder towards Potter correlated with the fact that Potter was too ill to be any _fun_ anymore, and that winning the war on top of bagging the most revered wizard in the world was getting to Ginevra’s big head in self-destructive ways. That was what happened when spoiled children were given everything on a silver platter without having to work for it. While Molly and Arthur had, to their credit, produced some arguably remarkably bright and competent offspring, they were all also bullheaded, reckless, and could be downright unpleasant due to their lack of manners.

In Severus’s humble opinion Granger was better off without the oaf, Ronald was absolutely below average in all of his coursework and while Albus praised his abilities to play chess, the fool possessed no other significant skills other than being startingly sexist. He coasted off of the fame of being Potter’s closest friend, and unsurprisingly time and again when matters appeared to get too tough or in times that Potter did not seem to be all that popular Ronald reliably turned his back on Potter. Even, as Severus had heard, abandoning said best friend and girlfriend to die in the wilderness! Likely because, bottomless pit he was, Ronald had gotten hungry, and the adventure was no longer fun, and if Severus’s observations were correct… the fact that Harry Potter is male and therefore a potential rival for Miss Granger’s affections, was likely the leading factor in his abandoning them both to die as punishment for not providing a fun time or a snog. Thus when Miss Granger’s talents outshone his own he dumped her, and when Potter had been too ill to serve as an entertaining playmate who would boost his own reputation he dumped him too.

Severus had given the boy about a year of being a full-time Aurar before that job proved to be far less glamorous for him too. Ronald lasted longer than that but eventually he did quit in favor of working at the troubling twins’ shop.

Ones like Ginevra never turned into upstanding citizens. They sold their souls over some boy or another, and then threw hissy fits when they didn’t get what they had wanted. Severus had seen plenty of her less-than-admirable side, too much in fact, more than he had ever desired to have known in the first place.

It had been on one of his little strolls out and about to relieve his boredom that he had run across her screeching at Potter for being no fun at all. Apparently the lad was far too sick to properly “get it up to bugger her”.

…Severus… really would have preferred to have gone the rest of his life never knowing about Potter’s sex life.

Or lack of sex life rather. According to Ginevra he’d still been a virgin.

Likely having wanted to wait for the love of his life. Severus did pity the boy for that. It was very sad.

And then came the photograph in _The Prophet_ of Ginevra hexing the living tar out of the boy. In public.

Which had been beyond shocking.

This had been the first indication to Severus that Potter’s relationship with the chit was not the usual long-suffering male stuck with a garden variety gold-digging social-climbing fangirl. Of course given that this was hardly the first time the girl had hexed someone for any trivial matter that irked her, domestic violence such as this wasn’t out of character.

Though given that it had come upon the heels of it coming to Minerva’s direct attentions from Potter giving her testimony of it himself, that the girl had turned alcoholic and that he did not know where she was getting the bottles of fire whiskey but that after having done some investigation of his own he had determine that she had to have a stash of it somewhere in her school possessions.

This did arouse some alarm for Severus.

Especially given that Minerva recognized some of the bottles as having gone missing from her own drinks cabinet from her office, which had been looted clean right after the final battle. Particularly one rare vintage bottle which Albus himself had written on the label as a past Christmas gift.

Severus knew enough about alcoholics to recognize that this had to have been an ongoing problem since… oh he’d say long before the final battle at least given the desperation it must have taken to fight through the wards placed on Minerva’s drinks cabinet preventing anyone but her from getting in.

Yet strangely Severus had not… seen any indication the girl was prone to drink in her memories… it must have started not too long before the last battle.

Not that Severus had been well enough to investigate properly but he did begin to collect newspaper articles to begin compiling a timeline to investigate later, and while the girl had remained in school he had watched her from the shadows.

Severus knew a mean drunk when he saw one. If not for the red hair and her height she could do a right accurate impression of his own da. Whenever Ginevra had picked up the habit she was well and truly a lost cause.

Minerva and the staff talked often about their hope that the love Potter had for her and the realities of the real world would prove to be a cure for Ginevra’s behavior. Severus had warned them that such would not be the case. As an addict she would seek nothing but her vices, Potter would be taken advantage of if no one stepped in to protect him from her. Likely he would have no choice but to leave her to her own destruction. If an addict did not desire to change their ways then they never would.

Severus had given it six months before Potter would surely get fed up.

In reality it had been about a month.

He was not certain how the event transpired, only that he had been woken up from a sound sleep by Poppy who had urged him to make extra doses of a nerve healing agent and skele-gro _fast_. Severus had not even have known that it had been Potter and Ronald who had been in her infirmary if not for the worried chatter of the elves. Her vows as a healer prevented her from speaking but her wards prevented him or anyone else from investigating. A day after that the infirmary stood empty.

Severus had to heard from Filius that word in Hogsmeade was that Molly was searching for her errant daughter and not in a good way. Poppy had apparently grown sick of castle gossip for she refused to speak to anyone about it and since she possessed the power to order anyone who pushed their luck to undergo a mandatory prostate and/or pelvic exam they were all forced to use other sources for information.

Several weeks later and multiple Ministerial obligations left unattended, it became apparent that whatever was going on in Potter’s social life was drastically affecting Potter’s ability to uphold his duties. The newspapers were abound with speculations, particularly since the last Potter had been seen he and Ronald had reportedly, according to the neighbors, had an altercation with Ginevra before she stormed out, spending the next two days being spotted by witnesses who all agreed that she was acting very erratically, with a broken whiskey bottle wielded in one hand and her wand in the other. Skeeter’s camera man even managed to get a photograph mid-being hexed.

“I told you she would not get any better if left on her own.” Severus had said, but Minerva was too preoccupied with Kingsley asking if she could ask the students if any of them knew how they could get in contact with Potter, to listen to Severus.

Then a week later Poppy had frantically conscripted him to brew an antidote for severe moonstone poisoning, then a few days later she had kicked him out of the lab and moved him into a different one in order for Draco Malfoy to work on something top secret that she had confessed to binding him by no less than half a dozen secrecy oaths to keep quiet about. Severus knew it had something to do with Potter because from the shadows he had witnessed many distraught Weasleys and Granger coming and going from the infirmary.

Poison, was the word on the street. Poisoned by a psychotic mad fangirl, and according to his so-called _“friends”_ Potter did not desire to bring her to justice, had been what Draco had sourly told Minerva. Physically unable to speak anything further about it.

“No.” Poppy had stated before Minerva could get so much as a word out during the “staff” meeting (that also consisted of several Order members who knew that Severus still lived), then slapping down a thick folder upon the table with a loud BANG when someone else opened their mouth to speak.

“A complete and concise compilation of the magical nature of the laws that bind me to secrecy whenever I am made privy to a patient’s medical situation, not just through my morality but by magic as well.” Poppy began, opening the folder and then started to slowly flip through the pages as she spoke. “It seems that all of you and you lot as well, seem to be under the impression that the same rule bending and privileges Albus Dumbledore had awarded you in his position as both Head Warlock, and Headmaster, and leader to a secret, illegal, police force would carry over long after his death. For the last time. I am not physically capable of revealing anything to you about the situation! Even if I were I would still not tell any of you anything because my patient has specifically asked me not to disclose anything, to any of you, and yes, he named a good majority of you by name! No, there is no means around it unless you were committed to go full on Voldemort and extract the information from my brain using dark spells that would kill me and rip apart my skull in the process! He is somewhere safe and that is all you need to know. Next person to risk asking me this very redundant question despite knowing full well that the lot of you are tap dancing on my last nerve shall be rushed to Mungos for a full bodied exam because the Board of Magical Health shall be getting a tip that you all are showing symptoms of the rare exotic mokimoki disease _. Do not_ test me!”

With that she had left.

“…I am fairly certain she made that word up.” Filius said with a suspicious look towards where the woman’s chair stood empty.

“Anyone willing to volunteer to test that out?” Severus had asked dryly.

None raised their hand.

That left Severus no choice but to break into Potter’s private room and ask the boy himself.

The boy in question looked startingly different than how Severus had ever seen the lad before. For a long moment Severus had thought he had gotten the wrong room or that Potter had been spirited away during the night and replaced with one of the students. The figure on the bed was smaller than how Severus had remembered Potter, the dark complexion he’d acquired during his time on the run had turned grey, and his frame had looked… almost female.

The fading scar on the boy’s forehead gave him away however, as did the vivid green of his eyes when he rolled his head to the side and opened his heavy lids.

Potter looked Severus directly in the eye and had said: “Mione, ye’re sh’posed t’ be home resting. Tol’ you I’m fine.”

“Do I look like Miss Granger to you?” Severus had challenged.

Potter smiled weakly. “Who else would you be silly? There is only one of you in the whole world Luna.”

“…” Severus had come to the very swift conclusion that the boy was gravely ill.

“Tell me what happened. Who did this to you?” Severus had tried to ask but the boy’s eyelids fell closed with an exhausted sigh.

“’S not your fault Arthur.”

“Potter, give me the name of your poisoner.”

“’S not your fault what she had done Molly. I sowwy I couldn’t help her.”

Was it Ginevra? Potter?”

“Oh Bill I don’t know why you can’t get ‘n’ta the flat. Should’ve worked.”

“Potter? Potter!”

“Mhn.”

“Potter?” Severus seized the boy’s hand, patting at it in firm but carefully not harsh slaps. “Potter, stay with me!”

“I think after this I should take a vacation somewhere out of the country.” The boy sighs going limp.

Severus squeezed the boy’s hand, giving up for the moment.

Severus had still been far too feeble from his own injuries to investigate where the Weasleys had hidden Potter once they had spirited the boy away. Yet where few clues lay toward the boy’s whereabouts plenty had come of the fate of Ginevra, she who had reportedly fled out of the country with a wealthy lover, notorious for his playboy party lifestyle. No one could agree on who this mysterious lover was, but very soon after her departure Skeeter had unearthed a well of information from the muggle pubs that Ginevra had apparently frequented that very summer when she had moved out of the Burrow and into her brother’s flat in London. This was naturally sensationalized to a degree where none could tell fact from fiction and as Potter’s absence stretched on the tales became even more outrageous, the only truth seemed to lie in the muggle photograph of Ginevra doing what Severus recognized to be a keg stand.

Oddly it was Draco who had been able to shed some light on the situation.

Even so, Severus was _almost_ positive that most of it had been a lie by omission.

“Apparently Harry’s letter to Draco had said that she had been left disturbed by the war and being forced to attend Hogwarts where so many had been killed only exacerbated the issue. He said that Ginevra had desired to find some way of being carefree once again, but grew quickly discontent when Harry had been too ill to keep her happy, and the mounting social pressures for her to give up her dreams to become nothing more than a serviceable womb, less than a footnote in history drove her to an irritable mood and deep depression. Instead of talking about her problems she chose to self-medicate with what she had looted from my cabinet. Apparently she had eventually fallen out of love when she found Harry to be too boring to even try mending their relationship and elected to leave the country entirely to get away from the press and her family who all desire her to grow up and abandon her newfound lifestyle.”

“Did this letter mention the identity of the poisoner?” Severus asked, dubious of the truth of any of this.

“Only that she had threatened to disgrace her family’s reputation should he speak out, so instead Harry got around this by working _with_ her family in order to lock her up in a mental care institution where she could get professional help and not hurt anyone else.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed.” Minerva hissed through her teeth. “Harry is safe. Just taking a long vacation somewhere warm to properly recover. We can press him for the real story when he gets back.”

Yet Potter had never returned.

Severus would not deny that he was tired, often he’d been tempted to leave the damn boy be and finally move on with his life.

Yet there was no means of gauging whether the boy was actually safe… or even still alive. A year away, perhaps two was warranted given everything that had transpired, but three? More?

Harry Potter had everything waiting for him on a shining golden platter in London. Fame, fortune, adoring public, his blasted father would have never turned away such prizes and neither would the spawn of James Potter willingly forego being the center of attention. Severus knew the boy. Clearly a great deal more had gone on behind closed doors, and more was afoot than what the rest of the Order had been allowed to know.

It did cross Severus’s mind that perhaps the boy was just as tired as Severus was and would desire a quiet retirement as well, but given how the boy basked in the adoration of his fame Severus always ended up berating himself for the strong sense of pity he had developed for the boy over the course of these past few years. It was clearly clouding his judgement.

Who would turn such fame, such glory away? Certainly not the son of James Potter.

Something was terribly wrong. Severus could feel it. The awful fact haunted his dreams. Lily’s precious baby boy, the one she had given up her life to protect…

And Severus had failed once again in protecting him.

The potion hidden in the perfume bottles were the key… or at the very least they were a big clue towards solving the bigger puzzle. It was not a simple task, for the fool girl had obviously not thoroughly washed- by hand and using boiling hot equal parts water, vinegar, and sodium chloride solution- the perfume containers before stashing the potion inside and thus the resulting mix was contaminated from the start. Furthering his exasperation the potion had not been stored properly and had _fermented_. Changing the entire composition of the potion and thus obscuring its original use.

It does, however, contain large concentrations of moonstone, aragonite, and conchiolin. The rest of the ingredients must have been biological in nature for the process of fermentation had changed the chemical make-up beyond recognition, but due to their mineral nature he is at least able to tell that oysters had been used in the making of the product and the concentration of moonstone is abnormally high. More than what was safe for a magical individual to ingest in frequent or large doses for the moonstone holds properties that can affect the mind and disrupt the flow of magic inside one’s own body-

“Poppy did you treat Potter for moonstone poisoning?”

“All I am allowed to say about the incident is to confirm that I had indeed requested you design a potion to combat such an affliction for an extreme case where the individual in question suffered from an immune deficiency.” She says without looking up from her paperwork.

“Right.”

So Ginevra Weasley had been the poisoner and her family had gone to great lengths to cover it up. Likely they had begged Potter to leave and sent Ginevra far away in order to not cause them more scandal to their family who were just starting to gain back their fortunes now that so many of them held important positions in the magical world.

Or worse, they gave him no choice but to disappear.

Worse still they could have found it in them to silence Potter for good.

They had all adored the boy, but that did not change the fact that he was not one of their own by blood. Attempting to get answers from the Weasleys when one of their own was in trouble was a lost cause. Whatever they had done to Potter the facts that one of their own had attempted to murder the Chosen One, and that the boy had not returned to the fame, glory, and adoration of the wizarding populace clearly indicated that the boy was in serious trouble.

So Severus committed himself to finding the little idiot to make sure he hadn’t died while he’d been off on his extended “vacation”.

XXX

After counting back from thirty Poppy looked up from pretending to do her paperwork and stared at the front door of her office where Severus had once been.

“Such a bright boy and yet it takes him three years to figure that out and the others are still bumbling about without a clue.” She can’t help but note with a roll of her eyes. “It’s a miracle that the combined teamwork of Albus’s chosen gullible favorites haven’t ended up accidentally blowing the rest of us mere mortals to smithereens. No wonder all of the smart ones have decided to flee. With leaders like these who needs death cults to wipe us all out? I swear the lot of them wouldn’t be able to find a clue even if it sat on the tip of their noses.”


	4. Moving On, Finding Healing Through Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Dysphoria is discussed, not as crippling as it could be, but it is described and it is a significant element.
> 
> Harry moves on with life.

_2000-2002-ish…_

Technically Harry had two birth certificates, the one James had legally filed with London’s magical Ministry and the one mum had Remus file in secret in the muggle world. James had apparently never cared to file anything with the muggle world (he only seemed to pretend he cared for the sake of looking like a rebel or something). So Harry had an entire new identity with legal papers he could just pick up and move forward with his life.

Even if it had never been put to use while his mum was still alive, in an ironic way it felt a lot like mum was looking out for him from beyond the grave because with a validated legal muggle birth certificate he didn’t have to be Harry Potter son of the Purebred James, Boy-Who-Lived, Chosen One, Savior. Harry had always just wanted to be Harry ever since being famous proved to be not as safe or fun as Dumbledore kept trying to convince him it was.

The birth certificate James had submitted was just as good as invalid now. Merely a fraudulent piece of paper documenting someone that never even existed. Harry saw no reason to hold onto that identity since it had never been truly Harry’s to begin with. Just another lie.

Harry Potter had never existed. Nor would he ever return.

It was so very strange to be able to sit down and realize that everything people had believed so religiously had been nothing but a myth all along. A Purebred lineage had never been what had saved them. Harry Potter had never been their savior. It had been the daughter of a muggleborn witch and the muggle born witch herself that had been their savior. The real story was that first a muggleborn witch had used her own magic to kill the bad guy and save her daughter’s life, and then when she grew up that same daughter had put an end to a second war started by the same people.

Yet they’d never accept such a thing. They’d see it as utter blasphemy that someone with the wrong breeding had been capable of doing so much.

So they’ll continue to believe in a myth.

Of someone who never existed, nor was the actual chosen one of the prophecy.

And Harry was so tired of being expected to assume the role of this myth that everyone had made up about what legendary ideal that Harry Potter should be. No one of flesh and blood could ever become everything they all wanted. It was more… like they wanted Harry to become a manifestation or a god that represented a series of concepts and that… is just not possible for a human to do.

Mum’s actions had not been in vain. Harry did end up benefitting from her escape plan… even if it was two decades late, it still afforded her child the choice to be free.

Even if his mother had never been allowed to know her daughter, something good had come from all of this.

Even if Harry had a huge complicated mess from both the past and with his own body to untangle.

At the beginning of all of this it had been startling to discover that, had his mother been successful in running away from James, he had come very close to being a _H **en** ry_ instead of a Harry. He thought long and hard about idea of finding some way of honoring his mother while still keeping a name that Harry could respond to. This is his chance to stop being Harry Potter after all, he could choose any new name he liked, he is of age, he can change his name however.

He was extremely partial to the name Harriet and have that be done and over with but Andromeda warned him that anyone with a passing knowledge of Harry’s mum would find him out quick. Particularly since Remus Lupin, a man with a muggle mother and therefore also had a legal muggle identification number, was listed as Harry’s biological father.

Remus is clearly not Harry’s father. Harry’s dark skin and hair proved that right quick, but while Remus’s name stood out as unusual he is not known well enough to warrant anyone researching into his life, and the name of Lily Evans is fairly common enough in the muggle world Harry doubted that, as long as Harry did not choose an immediately recognizable variation of the name Harry he was fairly safe. Triply safe given that no one was likely to believe that a dark skinned muggleborn woman was their beloved pale skinned son-of-an-English-Pureblood-of-proper-breeding boy.

Boy. Never man. Why they could say that a boy had fought in a war as if it was a good thing mystifies Harry.

He really doubted anyone would possess the brains to figure it out.

So he went into a local book shop, not to buy a book but to browse through baby books to find listed variations of the name Harriet and chose the Swedish variant Henrika because it gave Harry the option of telling people to just call him Harriet while still honoring his mum’s choice in the name Henry.

Even though he had stolen their dragon the goblins were oddly helpful when it came to Harry making the legal transition from Henry Septimius Evans (male) to Henrika Septimius Evans (female), they pitied him a hell of a lot too, that was a big factor to why they were nicer than usual. It also helped that he had turned over the Marauder’s map and whatever he could find on how it was made to them as an upfront, unrequested and therefore sincere, apology for stealing their dragon and breaking into their bank. Also that he had killed the guy who was likely going to commit genocide against all of the goblins. That also helped.

Though there was also the added fact that shortly after (or was it a bit before?) the whole thing with Ginny had come out Bill had casually asked the goblins if Dumbledore had been legally named the regent for the estate or if Harry’s aunt had any legal claim to Harry whatsoever. You know, given that she had stuffed her own nephew under the stairs to live and was the core source of all of his health problems. Had they never checked in on that? Given that it was bank procedure and Harry’s an orphan and all. Did they, the goblins, really just take a wizard at his word that everything was fine?

Goblins may hate wizards but Harry must have looked especially pitiful whenever they saw him because they tended to be rather less gruff around the edges whenever Harry had business with them.

The goblins got him in touch with a specialist because apparently Harry was far from the only case of botched paternal potion to transpire in the wider magical world. In fact there was a whole medical discipline and therapies, and research institutions, and support groups devoted to the whole mess of it because it is so common. Of course it depended on the individual country on whether or not such care would be provided (magical London did not have it, but Ireland did to a limited capacity), but with a new name Harry felt protected from the same level of fear he would have felt if he were still legally going by Harry Potter. No one would recognize him, legally he has a whole set of different legal papers and he is not required to go into details on his life’s story. All he has to say is “I had a different name under a magical London birth certificate, and I was also in the war” and people left him alone, because that spoke more than enough about his situation. His scar had faded so much that it could only be seen under bright lights, Remus was nothing but a werewolf and as much of a footnote in magical London’s history books as Lily Evans, no one suspected a thing.

The specialist at the clinic Harry saw did insist that Harry go to support therapy in autumn when Harry traveled to Norway in an attempt to salvage some sort of usable education that he could… actually _use_ instead of just being conscripted to become a weapon or a political toy for the rest of his life until some assassin got a lucky hit in. Harry was also placed under observation at a local hospital for three days because of the whole malnutrition-delayed puberty-love potion poisoning thing. There Andromeda came to Harry’s rescue because the healers wanted to contact Harry’s last physician in order to get Harry’s full health records because what did a war have to do with not being allowed access to such information? Andromeda had taken the specialists to the side, Harry did not know precisely what she had said, but Harry’s pretty sure she had given the impression that a legal honor killing might be issued to preserve a particular _white_ Pureblood man’s honor if anyone in Purebred circles caught wind that Harry was still alive and had not died like the records in London currently state, because when the specialists came back they were pale and assuring Harry that security had been posted outside of the door and everyone would be identified before coming into Harry’s room.

So Harry had to undergo a battery of tests that were almost but not quite as thorough as Hermione’s and Harry had to undergo the embarrassing task of regaling his horrified audience about his abusive home life, the abuse inside of Hogwarts, love potions being pretty much legal as long as no one important complains in magical London and how Harry had nearly been accidentally poisoned because a witch wanted to gain prestige from the family name and money, and how Harry’s gender came out and he implied that her family had taken pity on him, nursed him back to health, but still kind of ran him out of the country because their daughter’s reputation was in jeopardy and it was just… better for him to disappear and never come back.

It ended up sounding like something from a muggle historical drama, but it worked because magical London had a reputation as a country filled with crazy people who had all sorts of traditions of killing if their citizens did not conform. Such was the apparent consequence of three major wars taking place within a century and two genocidal maniacs rising up from magical England’s upper crust society circles.

This was how Harry found most of his stay in both Spain and Norway: inside the walls of some medical facility or another. This was also how he won the top prize for the unspoken _‘my life was a living hell’_ contest amongst the others in the support groups he had to attend as part of his transitional therapy.

Harry did in fact find some benefits to nude modeling even though it could be really difficult staying still for long stretches of time. People in the muggle art world are mostly outwardly understanding in a clinically empathetic sort of way about his body changing due to recovering from malnutrition, in the magical art world Harry’s body is to them almost like a symbolic representation of all the evils of magical London.

In the muggle world Harry draws inspiration from a big MLM company being sued for the harmful effects their sports drinks and nutrition plan had on their customers. He tells them that he went to a posh British boarding school and is recovering from their team’s coach forcing them all to practically live off of the stuff because he believed that it would magically make them all better players. He had initially thought he’d just say he was recovering from an illness but too many muggles were going through the same thing and they had wanted to know details. With this cover story Harry could easily say that he was using money the school gave to him as settlement in exchange to keep his mouth shut about naming the exact school who had done this to him, in an attempt to get his life back on track.

Because when you are sick enough having security that you will be financially supported while you recover kind of overshadows dying trying to seek justice from a posh school with the backing of some verrry influential important people.

In the magical world Harry does not have to elaborate some grand lie because he tells them he is muggleborn and they all have heard horror stories from Britain to fill in the rest. In the muggle world he has the luxury of switching genders and hiding behind anonymity, in the magical world he remains a singular person with two faces but it is the exposure of his body that is helping him through coming to terms with it as it changes in not just gender but in shape as his body is allowed to go through puberty and he begins to put of weight and for a while the fat his body stores settles in some places but not others because of both the medication, and just how the body reacts to recovering from starvation and stress: Storing up nutrients in the event of being in danger again.

It’s a strange sort of art therapy, where Harry just poses and the sight of him seems to telegraph something to the artists, intuitively they create images that reflect back himself as a human being. Not an ideal or a concept, just an unapologetic, truthful reality of his humanity.

In the mirror he does not recognize himself and feels alienated by what he sees, but on canvas Harry can see himself through the artist’s eyes and what he sees is deeply comforting. Finally, he need not feel as if he were nothing but an imposter pretending to be the James Potter everyone had wanted to have survived.

He did not have to live as a replacement anymore.

He only poses in his kind-of-pale skinned Harry Potter form for a brief number of months for one particular freelance photographer in Norway and a life drawing seminar during the summer in Spain in the muggle world before his regulated medical potions do their job and transforming back becomes more and more difficult until one day it gets to a point to where he has to accept that he would probably sprain something to keep it up any longer and that he had achieved what he had set out to do. Which was to take back his agency over who was allowed to see Harry Potter in the buff. Granted, it is the image of a sickly Harry Potter who is far from the idealized image people had of him, but still recognizably Harry Potter.

Andromeda has her reservations since she worries that Harry is overcompensating for the nightmarish way Ginny had treated Harry’s body… which… not incorrect, but the older woman had been seeing things from a highborn Purebred perspective with clear and present fears about the reputation Harry was building for the identity he’d have to live with for the rest of his life, so Harry offers for her to come along to see for herself that it is safe. Which winds up with her getting unexpectedly emotional because seeing him lain out with his ill body out in the open really drove home just how ill Harry had been at the time. Yes the woman had seen Harry at his lowest points during his relationship with Ginny, but the toll that overdose had taken on Harry’s body was mostly covered up from her eyes via clothing or a medical gown.

The up side is that the older witch feels enough pity for Harry’s justified sense of body issues that she no longer protests Harry’s side job. Down side is that she treats Harry like he’s made of glass for a while and winds up staying with Harry for a month longer than planned and develops a fascination with instructing Harry on how to present himself as a witch. He copes with this by helping to take care of Teddy and studying when he isn’t napping.

After she and Teddy have to go back, Harry does have an affair with a male artist who paints beautiful portraits of Harry and writes poetry, which comes about as a surprise since Harry’s last real romantic crush had been on Cho… and to a lesser extent maybe the Half-blood Prince before Harry found out the boy on the page had turned into someone as an all-around definition of **_nope_** as Snape.

But Harry does find that despite his body’s negative reaction to the mere thought of Ginny, and the disappointment he had felt for his second love turning out to have been Snape all along, Harry discovers an unexpected side effect to puberty: libido.

But not normal libido, because while Harry experienced delayed puberty, he was an adult, with an adult mind, and adult emotional needs.

His affair with Kalim is based around a firm mutual respect, a deeply sexual romantic nature, and the understanding that it was temporary as well as strictly casual. Kalim is upfront about being more than a bit of a player and Harry is honest about his past abusive relationship leaving him too exhausted to consider a serious relationship. It is a hard shift from his attitudes during school surrounding sex… which were basically nonexistent seeing as how he had no libido and was all romance, so much so that Harry… had never thought about sex aside from the fact that Ginny had wanted it and she had been so… aggressively unromantic and made Harry feel like nothing but an object that Harry had, during the majority of his relationship with her, actually dreaded getting well enough to get it up. However, the irony of the situation was that despite the highly casual nature of his relationship with Kalim Harry was awarded with far more acceptance, not to mention agency, than he ever had before. Sex on his own terms and not the whims of someone looking to use him until he broke and then leave him to suffer in pain and rejection afterwards like a used tissue.

Neither he nor Kalim were interested in a long-term monogamous relationship, only something that would last for the late spring and early summer before it was time for Harry to move on from Norway, but being allowed to make a casual romantic connection where there are two mature consenting adults on equal footing in the relationship even if neither are in monogamous love with one another is just plain refreshing. Enough so that a piece of himself that Harry had feared Ginny had broken forever gets a chance to heal and he finds it just a little easier to move forward.

Harry is still ill when they start so Kalim has to do most of the hard work, and while finally being free of Ginny and the sheer awfulness of being Harry Potter does help matters Harry still gets feelings of body dysphoria so communication becomes key about where Harry might feel a bit too self-conscious to be touched at that particular moment. Even so Harry winds up learning a lot about himself and that pleasure can act as a form of pain relief which he sorely needs. He allows himself to be spayed open and feel the slow slide of bodies uniting and nothing hurts, emotionally or physically, it’s… nice being able to have a taste of what a healthy mature adult relationship feels like instead of being the only adult trapped in a relationship with a bratty immature teenager.

He even makes several new friends who are vastly different in comparison in the way they live their professional and personal lives when compared to the strict stuffy rules of magical London. It is so strange to be surrounded by adults who actually enjoy living life not so seriously and yet they still manage to be far more wise and mature than… pretty much the majority of the wizarding population. Like, back in Britain the adults would throw a hissy fit if their quills were replaced by muggle pens because it is different and it is invading their comfort zone and their whole day would be disrupted because something not wizardry messed with their aesthetic. Meanwhile, the type of people Harry gravitated towards in the outside world just went “Ooh, floofy, floof pen” if Harry did the reverse for them and they’d carry on with their day as normal just with pens with fluffy bits on the end because they are far more comfortable with the world and in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t a big deal!

Words could not express how wonderful it was to be the youngest in the room yet not the only one acting like the competent adult. Certainly, theirs was a very modern lifestyle within the magical and muggle worlds, but Harry adapted a lot quicker than he ever had in the chronically problematic traditionalist-or-die circles he had grown up in.

By mid-summer Harry, somehow, in the midst of all of the rest of the things he was getting up to, had passed the muggle proficiency portions of his exams as well as his Potion (because damn if the man spun in his grave at the very notion but Harry liked potions when Snape wasn’t breathing down his neck) Associates Certification, having already passed DADA, transfiguration, and charms first thing that autumn and therefore only had one magical discipline to study for.

Muggle proficiency was not what Harry had expected, for it was neither on par with British A-Levels nor Hogwarts’s xenophobic muggle studies class (how McGonagall hung onto the hope to convince muggleborns to attend Hogwarts again mystified Harry. She seemed a lot smarter than to expect the impossible). Mostly muggle proficiency was learning basic skills to prepare people for muggle university and how to manage money, with how to write papers, job applications, resumes, job interviews, computer literacy, basic arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, introduction to classic literature, a general history of the world, and cultural sociology to better hammer home the point that the world is big and the majority of the world does not give a damn about petty Purebred squabbles save to make fun of it at every turn.

So essentially everything that Hogwarts did not offer. All of the things that are useful to people wanting to live in the world as independent adults… not offered at Hogwarts.

It put a darker spin on Hogwarts’s declaration that it would work the children hard to churn out a workforce for the Ministry.

A very dark spin.

Harry made note of it to Ron in his letters. Kind of a warning to get-out if Ron felt in anyway dissatisfied with his job, because clearly this was a red flag. Harry could not articulate the full extent of the red flag, but it felt, intuitively, deep in his bones, like a red flag.

After bidding Kalim and his new friends goodbye he then travels to Australia to stay with Hermione and her parents while in his male form. He had already briefly met up with them in Norway over Christmas where things were a bit awkward because… as much as Hermione anguished over having had to erase their memories of her to protect them and she was still dealing with the psychological fallout of the event that had actually broken her to do, they in turn were forced to confront the fact that they… were pretty terrible parents.

Like, not abusive, but definitely neglectful. One night while sneaking out of his room to use the loo Harry overheard them anguishing over how, during the short few months they had thought themselves to be a childless couple, they had… kind of often said out loud how glad they were to have never had children… and then Hermione came back and they find out that their only child had known just how useless they were and sent them away without any memories of her because she had been positive that she was going to die and that the bad guys would go after them to get to her… and they had not a fucking clue that there had been a war going on at all. Or that their daughter had endured horrible racism because she wasn’t inbred, and their fancy family trips during hols did not… allow them to bond with her so much as it was mostly a vacation for them while Hermione was kept distracted enough by their trip to… not be a typical child and therefore a nuisance…

Ouch.

They felt anguished by it! realizing that abandoning her at some mysterious British boarding school based solely on the reputation that it was posh was a terrible idea given that Hermione had to work herself to the bone all of the past year just to catch up on everything that Hogwarts either did not teach or, like in history, was so outdated that it was useless to her.

They even cried over it! They were bending over backwards trying to make up for the fact that they had pretty much abandoned their daughter in a dangerous magical equivalent to fascist Germany during the nineteen thirties and forties. Though Harry was far from impressed now that he realized that they had never demanded to meet their child’s friends or the families of her friends… or pick up a magical newspaper subscription…

No wonder Hermione was so responsible, she was the only adult in her whole family.

Other than their stunningly disappointing parenting, the Grangers are overall good people as far as everything else went. They do love Hermione, and they are _extremely_ sympathetic to what Harry was going through. They are indeed dentists, but not ordinary dentists, because Mrs. Granger works in an extremely posh funerary home, and Mr. Granger is a Ph.D. specialist on prehistorical animal teeth and lectured in a top Australian University.

Which had been fascinating albeit a bit terrible when, as if on cue for a petty cosmic joke, Harry’s wisdom teeth start giving him troubles and he has to get them removed, enduring the Australian Christmas in July tradition and his birthday with his mouth being one big ouch.

Then, Mr. Granger notices Harry shift from male to female while the other women of the house were out getting soft foods, and Harry had been under heavy pain meds.

 _Don’t tell Hermione yet. She’s my best friend but it hurts too much for me to deal with in front of close friends right now._ Harry writes because they had to saw into his bone and talking is not an option for at least a few days. _What James has done to me is something I have to come to terms with first before helping Hermione come to terms with it. He’s hailed as this huge hero back in Britain but that’s a lie._

“So… you are turning into a woman-er, witch?”

_Eventually, right now I can switch at will which helps with the dysphoria._

“Well historically societies where the male inherits the family fortunes while the girls are given dowries to pay other families to marry them to their sons do favor boys over girls.” The man had mused.

 _The number is unknown for London but Andromeda guesses that maybe 1 in 15 wizards are actually witches. Hence the massive rates of infertility in Purebred circles, and why they only have one or two children. She says that their wives find someone else to donate sperm._ Harry writes, because it is nice to talk openly about it without the air of extreme secrecy.

“…I know that he is your friend but I am so glad she is no longer dating that boy from Hogwarts.” Mr. Granger says fervently.

 _Ron didn’t make a good first impression with the whole blowing you all off to hang with his coworkers in the pub._ Harry admitted. It is a dim memory, but Harry’s fairly certain he had told Ron off for it… that or he had told Ron off for a different thing he’d done to make Hermione cry in embarrassment, and Harry had comforted Hermione, …or both…

“Why was she ever with him?”

_I have no Idea, all they ever did was fight back in school, fight all throughout the war, fight when they got together, they were never happy. But I’ll have to refer to you on relationships, given my past serious one was all due to a love potion and not real love._

“I say more needs to be done to prevent Hogwarts from finding muggleborns. There are plenty of other schools and educational programs that are far less harmful, if London’s wizards want to remain isolated so as not to bring new blood into their incestuous cult practices there was no need for a war. Their school curriculum is three centuries behind the rest of the global magical world, their government has nothing to offer other than Ministerial jobs or grunt labor to work in shops, anyone who is not directly related to someone in the seat of their House of Lords has no hope of job advancement or the right to vote, the pay is terrible when you are not from one of the Purebred families, they are notorious throughout Europe and the Americas to be extremely rude, intolerant, under educated, violent, uncultured, and they normalize the practice of using child soldiers. They have all of the free advertising that they need to prevent anyone but their numerous close cousins from ever wanting to send their children there, all they have to do is just stop sending Hogwarts letters to any child with magic and instead just stick with a small list of the ones who will have any chance at all in succeeding to top positions in their impossibly exclusive social structure. Nobody will care about being left out because for outsiders the Ministry has nothing to offer them.”

_I will pay you good money to send a letter saying just that to the School Board and/or the Daily Prophet. I kept trying to warn them that the whole child soldier doing the one job the adults refused to do aspect might not be the best thing to be so bloody proud about but they wouldn’t listen to me._

Aside from that one little hiccup, as well as bravely suffering his dysphoria in silence so as not to freak out Hermione which would in turn probably cause him to cry, the rest of his stay with them is uneventful.

It is an added bonus that his physical body and his body’s magic still remembers how it had felt to be fully male so he can switch back and forth at will, it has made his confusing body dysphoria a little easier to deal with. …Except for the fact that if he doesn’t commit to one form or the other for long enough he’ll shift in his sleep which makes things uncomfortably _interesting_ when he has to deal with weird gender flipping where he wakes up with multiple combinations of both male and female sex organs existing on his person at the same time first thing in the morning when he is unable to brace himself for it. Also, and this oddly makes him freak out more than the gonads situation, he soon realizes that pretty much all of his life he had been living with constant body image issues and that despite his situation _this_ has been the first time in his life where he has been allowed to _acknowledge_ that he is uncomfortable with his body and the biological shenanigans it pulls on him. He is so unused to people treating him as a person undergoing real serious problems that he is justified in showing that he feels vulnerable about it instead of soldiering on because someone else is mildly inconvenienced and Harry Potter’s unauthorized human feelings were a matter that he should stop feeling out in the open where they can see him because Harry Potter should not be anything but a paragon of Gryffindor virtue at all times.

Or an urchin under the stairs who needed to not be seen or heard.

It’s a complicated dynamic, where dysphoria is still a thing but it is muted by the sheer amount of yikes that dominated every waking moment of his childhood. Like on one hand it wasn’t at all fun, but on the other it’s like: HAhahahaha! I’m feeling as if I am a stranger inside a cage made up of my very flesh and bones and I have an actual fucking doctor’s note telling me that I am allowed to feel awful and complain about it because it is normal and my feelings are valid! Me feeling ugly things is valid! Valid, valid, _valid_!

Mostly it’s nice that Harry can switch physical genders whenever one or the other gets too much for him… buuut… as time passes he gets these weird, rare moments where he just doesn’t want to be any gender at all but his body refuses to comply to that and he wakes up in the middle of the night and just stares out into the darkness trying his damnedest to pretend he doesn’t even have a body because it is the middle of the night and he really doesn’t have the energy to be dealing with this kind of shit right now.

Eventually Harry decides that before he can think on what he’s going to _do_ with his life now that his designated purpose is officially over with, he needed to learn to be more self-sufficient when it came to taking care of his frail health. He had several potions that had to be custom ordered from a reputable brewer to be designed specifically for his needs. Already he has had to deal with his medications coming too late or having to be remade because of human error and backlog due to seasonal illnesses. Harry had already proven to himself that under the right circumstances he enjoyed brewing, and that he could be good at it! perhaps not brilliant like Snape or the Potter ancestors past, but according to the goblins he had inherited a goldmine of potion supplies and research, and as far as Harry could recall from his mother’s journals, James had never been good at potions. It was more he was from the right family and rich enough for Slughorn to grade him well for mediocre work.

It would just be better if Harry had the skills needed for brewing his own damn medication.

But first he needed to further his education.

So, Harry and Hermione do a little perusing of any Potter family houses he might have inherited, because he had learned a great deal from Andromeda, mainly that it was just easier to make use of real estate you already owned when travelling and boy oh boy did he and Hermione discover that the Potters loved to travel.

Harry decides on an old Victorian mansion in the far western province of Canada that his great-grandparen- that James’s grandparents. James’s family relatives. They had lived out their final days in, and that was close-by to a vineyard that was still owned by the Potter estates and contributed to Harry’s inherited income. With a portkey Harry could transport himself anywhere in the magical Americas so all he had to do was apply to the list of Potion Mastery programs Hermione had made a list of and finish out one last year of training.

This decision was made partly because it was a residence that resided in an English speaking country, and partly because it was an entire globe away from London and Harry felt rather safe with there being so much distance between him and his past. Hedwig would also feel right at home given that the North American continent is a snowy owl’s natural habitat so that was a bonus.

Harry had contacted the goblins, having already had past experience with Grimmauld Place to know to ask for an evaluation of the property and if it could be updated to modern health and safety codes, as well as muggle conveniences such as electricity. Because standing mixers and Hoovers made things convenient to do things yourself so that any witch worth their salt wouldn’t have to stoop down to using house elf slavery.

Honestly, Harry had come across a lot of spells over the years for cleaning and cooking. Why have magic if you never used it to take care of yourself?

While Harry waited for his new home base to be finished renovating he travelled around a bit, not to say that he necessarily disliked the idea of staying with the Grangers for longer, but the stress of being unable to change around Hermione at will was kind of forcing him to wonder why he craved to be in female form at all and Harry… was not ready for that level of introspection yet. Someday, possibly while he was off playing tourist in Iceland (his next destination), but not at that moment. At that moment Harry just wanted to enjoy the simple pleasure of being able to travel and have the luxury of not fretting over money. Like, Harry knows that Dumbledore would likely have had a lot of vaguely threatening things to say in kind tones about the dangers of impurity for the Savior to use money for a trip instead of… using money to buy fancy robes to make high society appearances… for political reasons…

Now that Harry thought about it Dumbledore was pretty inconsistent about the whole “the Savior must suffer to stay humble” thing. Like, it only ever came up if it got in the way of Dumbledore’s plans for Harry, but the man himself never followed the same rules. Harry wasn’t anything but a means to an end with a tragic story that was supposed to be recounted in history books and-

The trip was good. Travelling helped a lot with not feeling trapped by astonishingly irresponsible adults anymore. Harry had never been allowed to travel very many places, always kept controlled save for during the war. The sunshine in the summer night sky over the black beaches on Iceland’s shores helped lift Harry’s mood, as did being able to fly (not as fast or hard as Harry would have liked, but the fact that Harry still could fly was something to cherish) over the beautiful Icelandic landscapes. Harry needs to wear a special charmed eye mask to sleep, and wearing dresses is unexpectedly pleasant and Harry winds up casually dating an older man with a kinky knack with ropes, but Harry tries not to think too closely on either the dresses or whether or not this makes him gay or not… or if he is developing an attraction to a certain _type_ of man. Overall the trip helps Harry explore the prospect of life with no ties to Harry Potter, and Harry finds that despite the gender confusion the knowledge that he is allowed to not be Harry Potter and to get himself as far away as possible from that small, insignificant really, tiny part of the world and explore the vastness of everywhere else is…

Oh so wonderful.

In Iceland Harry crafts a new wand made from driftwood that had washed up on the black rocky shore and used the milk tooth of a bunyip- who had naturally shed it without it being ripped from the creature’s mouth or anything harmful- that Mr. Granger had given to Harry to use as the core. Harry did not know the wand lore for such unconventional items, and Harry did not care, it works and there is no twin to this wand, nor link to an evil mass murderer with an insensitive shop keeper making Harry feel guilty just for existing.

The wand is just Harry’s. Nothing more. Just a wand made by Harry’s own hands.

On a whim Harry makes a clothespin doll with red and yellow thread, a tuft of black sheep wool Harry had found stuck to a fence wire, and magic markers. The doll looks goofy especially with the little lightning bolt shaped mark above the right eye and the drawn on glasses, but it fits snug inside a crude boat transfigured from another piece of driftwood, and when wrapped into tissue paper like a shroud it does look like a proper miniature Viking funeral boat.

Harry drops it into a river and watches it go in silence.

Harry Potter’s purpose is finished. He can rest in peace now.


	5. One Way Or Another I'm going To Find You I'm- Oh Dear!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: General repressed man making assumptions without taking note of his own hypocrisy, what happens when one is raised in a very isolated regressive environment, if it were anybody but Harry Potter Snape would be less likely to jump to conclusions but funny thing about long-term trauma is that it manifests in very strange ways, misunderstandings, sad man telling himself stories, jumping to conclusions, hijinks, man traveling the world with a prudish air.
> 
> In which Severus follows a trail, sees far too much of naked Harry Potter than he had ever wanted to ever be forced to be exposed to, and has a confusingly calamitous reunion with Harry Potter in which someone gets kissed.
> 
> Now would be a fantastic point to stop and get some sleep, eat, and take a break before continuing. Very long chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Severus is just uninformed about the art world and nude models as a whole. In Hogwarts sex positivity only comes in two categories: gold digging sluts that must be shamed or pathetic prostitutes who are to be enjoyed in secret but never respected, perhaps saved from their "sad fates" but... yeah. yikes.
> 
> Harry's not comfortable internally identifying by male/female or them/they pronouns unless absolutely necessary because gender is super confusing right now and after being called an IT by Petunia gender neutral terms bring up bad memories so Harry tends to just refer to Harry's gender as just Harry inside of Harry's head.

_Sometime three years after Harry leaves …_

It had not been entirely as easy to find Potter as Severus had initially hoped.

Molly, while grateful that Minerva had sent someone to clean up the flat before the landlord could break down the front door and reporters photograph the interior, still refused to confess to where Potter was hiding. Still stubbornly refusing to say a word even as the magical community residing in Scotland were forming their own Parliament to prepare to cut ties with London, taking Hogwarts with them, and magical Ireland being formally recognized as a separate magical country by the rest of Europe. Wales, in a mass campaign for independence, were still refusing to send their children to Hogwarts and had organized their own police force, and suddenly decided to exclusively speak Welsh whenever diplomatic parties came running to attempt to diffuse the situation.

Cornwall, which had not been it’s own country in… since the days of yore, the small section of the island that most tended to forget even existed, had apparently gone to America to ask the tribes for advice and almost immediately after Potter had left the country had managed to organize itself as a home base for an alliance of Celtic nations for the descendants of the native Celtic peoples of Europe, opened their own magical school, and very pointedly evicted all of the Purebloods from the area. Granted, due to the fact that it had been _Cornwall_ there were not very many Purebloods to evict, and most of the ones that had been kicked out did not even live in Cornwall but instead only had some property that their so many times great-relative had once owned when it had been fashionable to travel to scenic local British places while Emperor Napoleon had been making a mess off Europe.

They had disabled the floo system and forced anyone coming in from outside to stop by regulated checkpoints, placed up wards to monitor their own apparition points making it impossible to police the defecting areas for they could always tell when London’s Aurars were coming. London no longer had the man power to keep control.

Despite his youth, alongside suffering from debilitating illness and the scandal from a spectacularly disastrous relationship Severus could give Potter some credit. In that his sheer presence alone had been the single thing keeping the magical world held together. For all of his faults the boy did understand the concept of adhering to one’s duties in life. For better or for worse without the Savior’s magic touch the magical world was doomed to fall apart at the seams.

Left with no other peaceful choice and with a world that seemed to increasingly require the unifying power of Saintly Harry Potter the remaining members of the Order who had not fallen into madness, had, once again, and with great trepidation, called upon Severus to utilize his skills once more. All who had attempted to find Potter before had come back empty handed, or in Hagrid’s case a sheepish apology for making his extended sabbatical more permanent and an engagement ring on his finger. Apparently in the next few months he was to be blessed with twins who would be attending the shotgun wedding of their parents.

None could find a trace, not even Minister Kingsley’s best men, all leads had led them on wild goose chases… sometimes literally. But in the form of some very irate swans and a muggle man who only just resembled Potter and had been bitten for his troubles in attempting to rescue the wizard from being dragged into the lake to drown by the gang of particularly cruel water fowl.

It had proven both an embarrassment as well as a surprisingly dangerous quest to undertake.

So they heaved all responsibility upon Severus’s shoulders.

Naturally.

Though in Severus’s defense, he was technically dead… and he hardly was the sort to be concerned with morality…

He had chanced using a brief bout of Legilimency on Ronald during the young man’s shift at his brother’s shop whilst Severus was in disguise, only to discover that the boy was entirely unaware of where his supposed “best mate” currently was.

Yet he knew of a scarce few definitive places where Potter had been.

Because Potter sent Ronald vials of memories.

This was a good sign for multiple reasons, mainly that Potter had survived whatever Ginevra had done to him to cause so much of his blood to be spilled onto the floor. If he had the luxury Severus would have cornered the boy somewhere private on his way home and have done a deeper look into everything the twat knew, but that would not end well for Severus and Minerva would not approve of him violating anyone to such a degree. Severus is not the Dark Lord, even if he is a dark wizard.

Also Severus was not keen on being subjected to even more glimpses of the fool’s rather pathetic sex life. Going from Granger to being reduced to fumbling in the dark with whomever he had picked up at the pub. Ick.

Severus would have had tried his luck with Granger herself if not for the fact that she is far smarter than Ronald and would have likely picked up on any intrusion into her mind. It also did not help that she, like Potter, had left the country some time ago and had never come back. Plus there was the fact that her father had sent rather scathing reviews about how useless the Hogwarts curriculum had been to prepare his daughter for the more modern parts of the magical world indicating that any contact from her former professors would be unwelcome...

Still, Severus is half tempted to track Granger down anyway, because while it had been child’s play to lurk in a dark corner of Ronald’s usual favored muggle pub and wait for the fool to get so drunk he’d lead Severus back to his flat, the twat had managed to, somehow, find a desperate enough young lady with extremely low standards, and likely suffering from the effects of inebriation, to take back home with him.

Yes, Severus had been able to stop the door from fully closing and slip past the wards. Yes, Severus had easily found Potter’s letters to Weasley in the top drawer of Ronald’s desk, the special velvet lined memory vial box on said desk next to the pensive, and had been able to cleanly copy and duplicate most of what was there while making barely a sound.

But the noises coming from the bedroom Severus could have done without. Namely due to the fact that the young lady had chosen to wear bright red latex trousers and there had been a great deal of _obscene_ rubbery squeaking and snapping, and thumping and Ronald sounding constipated and Severus did not know what the two were getting up to but there was a great deal of ominous exclamations from the woman encouraging Ronald to _take off her skin!_ At one point Severus had to hide behind the couch when a bare arsed Ronald Weasley, who was _still_ wearing his Cannons jersey, raced out for a spatula, a box of something from the pantry, and to conjure a large bowl of ice cubes.

Severus had not wanted to know. He simply did not! As best as he could he frantically, but carefully, put everything back before choosing to escape out the window when he had determined that the front door was too far away.

It had been immensely frustrating, after having to endure such a mentally scarring experience, to find that the most recent letters that Potter had written had absolutely no mention of where the boy had been, added to the fact that the memories were not only not labeled, but Potter had seemed to be intentionally careful in not giving Weasley any easily identifiable landmarks!

Severus could tell that Potter had been to a quaint southern European muggle village but he did not know if it was Spain, France, or Italy. Severus knew that Potter often went out flying over absolutely breathtaking natural landscapes, and visited museums, and aquariums, and zoos, took walks to places that were in the middle of nowhere, and went to see theater productions, but for all of the glorified posturing and showing off where his wealth is able to take him, for some bizarre unmentionable reasoning, for someone who enjoyed flaunting himself Potter did not label the vials with the exact places of where he might be, nor did he show himself in the memories, or name specific places in his letters.

Speaking of letters, another strange factor seemed to be that the more recent the letters the less detail Potter gave about his daily life, which was incredibly out of character for someone who enjoyed flaunting his accomplishments and social engagements. Instead citing that Potter had “desired to procure the necessary primary education degree for living in the muggle world” as well as pursue and interest in potions.

Potions.

Potter… and potions.

For this Severus has to take a step back and write down a list of Potter’s defining traits as Severus had known them before reviewing the evidence once again. Just so that he had a reference point to best compare the discrepancies of the letters.

The biggest aspect that stood out was that there was absolutely no mention of quidditch.

None.

Nor DADA, the only academic field that Potter truly excelled in instead of being given easy high grades for the mere fact that he was James Potter’s son. Given the pitiful number of years that there actually had been decent DADA instructors Severus would begrudgingly give the boy credit that he did have enough sense to study on his own for that lest they all die.

Potter also made vague references to having discovered that he was attracted to men and having a casual affair with a male artist.

…Despite only ever showing interest in witches for his entire life.

Potter also references running with art communities in both the magical and the muggle world, to which Severus could easily put down to a post-war crisis given the colossal waste of time those bohemian hippie types were, if not for the fact that Severus highly doubted that Potter had a creative bone in his body to make it as an artist. Let alone have any interest in the arts in the first place given the boy’s distinct lack of appreciation for fine culture, and most of the memories had been examples of fine culture, not bohemian or hippie.

The more Severus read the more he began to suspect that the Weasleys were constructing a false paper trail so that none would suspect that anything had happened to the beloved Chosen One. An idealistic portrayal of the hero riding off into the sunset and enjoying the finer things in life, humbly leaving behind all that he had known for he was no “longer needed”. The memories were a nice touch, but Severus did not see Potter himself in any of them, nor were most of the activities things that Potter would take interest in.

This added onto the fact that Potter could not be contacted save through… the Weasleys apparently. Despite them claiming that Potter had fallen off of the face of the Earth these vials proved that they were connected to his disappearance in some way. All other letters that had been sent to Potter shortly after his disappearance would always return several minutes later, unopened and with confused owls.

Owls could not find Harry Potter.

Perhaps the boy had set up wards to prevent simple means of contact, as had been the obvious assumption made by the wizarding public when it became apparent that none could properly send Potter their fan correspondence to convey their adoration of him, but Severus was getting the increasing alarming notion that there may be more sinister reasons to why owls could not find the boy.

Speaking of Potter what had happened to Miss Granger for that matter? Had she not been planning to attend training to become a civil activist lawyer or an Unspeakable? All she had told Kingsley was that she was going to spend some quality time with her parents and to check in on Potter, only to then never return as well. It was simply not like the girl to give up completely on anything. Severus would know… she was like a demon after a bone when it came to getting him to answer every single one of her endless, sanity destroying questions when all he had wanted to do was just get through class in order to have ten measly minutes to himself. Given how Ginevra had been the rumored final push behind the heartbreaking act of Ronald dumping Miss Granger the young woman obviously had zero familial-in-law connections to Ginevra to keep any of the Weasley’s dirty little secrets for them. She was Potter’s most loyal friend, the one who had not abandoned him to die in the middle of the war, the one who was likely behind why Potter passed his classes at all for she was an infamous task mistress when it came to studying sessions.

Had she gone to find Potter and the Weasley’s had no choice but to prevent her from coming back somehow? Perhaps they had tampered with her memories given the heated letters the school was receiving from her father about how little she had learned in Hogwarts. Yes, that would make sense given that Miss Granger had absorbed so much information that she had practically the whole library memorized.

Granger, not having learnt anything. Needing to take remedial courses in order to catch up.

Granger. The most excelled student in the entire school. Not just her own year, but her whole generation.

Something was definitely remiss.

Even so, Severus had no choice but to secretly travel all the way to Norway in order to begin tracking down the scarce mentions of the two particular artists Potter had referenced (he only had first names to go off of and a general idea of where they had all been), as well as the alternative education program Potter had apparently attended. Without evidence Minerva would never take necessary action, and without actually finding Potter’s physical body Severus could not begin to piece together what was going on so that he could present all of the evidence to a court of law.

Within the first few hours of his first day in the country his search looked as if Potter had not been to Norway at all given how someone like Potter would have surely made it worth at least a notable mention amongst the locals in the magical community, especially if he’d been enrolled in the magical alternative education program hosted at a university so unknown compared to the more prestigious ones found in London and France that it would have jumped at the opportunity to boast of being visited by such a celebrity.

Yet Severus does recognize that the Weasley’s had gone to the trouble to travel here given that several key features from the vial memories do align with the location: such as the local magical market street with the café that serves lava cake, the carved statue of a troll on the nature path just outside of the village, the modern muggle designed art gallery…

Which had been closed on the first day. Forcing him to wait.

This did not bode well, but at the very least he has gotten farther than anyone else ever had.

The student art gallery is open at the very least, perhaps Severus could see if anyone recognized the general description of Potter. Art galleries talked to one another... right? To seek out competition or some such artistic drama.

With that in mind Severus decides to pick up something to eat first before heading over.

XXX

 _Model: Henrika S. Evans_ read the little plaque beside the painting of the pitiful sickly figure curled up in a nest of soft white sheets like a nude human bird. A sickly, feminine looking human bird.

With his familiar perched behind him. On the edge of the white nest.

Severus stares at the painting for a very long time, the snowy owl aside he knows it is Potter from the scarring on the left hand, the green of the eyes, the sun kissed darkened hue of the skin, there is a fold of the white sheet concealing the scar but it is indeed a painting of Potter. A very scandalously exposed nude Potter. It may not seem like it at first glance given how the boy’s body is all ribs and jutting bones under darkened skin (obviously the artist was off by several hues for the skin tone), with odd deposits of fat (or is it bloating?) bulging around the stomach, chest, and thighs, but it is indeed Potter.

With his familiar perched in such a way that evoked the impression that she had birthed him.

It is a very strange portrait.

What the hell had prompted Potter to pose for this?

“Henrika… S. Evans…” Severus speaks slowly to himself, what kind of name was Henrika?

Why Evans? His mother would not want such a thing for her son! Why use her name for such unsanctified solicitation? He may as well be desecrating her name!

So Severus began to ask around, only to discover that the locals all assumed by his British accent that he was some kind of assassin because apparently- as far as Severus could piece together from what precious, very incredibly little, information he could get out of witnesses before they began pitching a fuss- Potter had in fact been run out of Britain. By force.

Apparently his life, as usual, once again, was in grave danger.

And all of this had transpired three years prior.

_Shite!_

Why was Potter posing utterly starkers for a very public portrait when his life was in danger and he had a reputation to maintain? Being starkers would have made… a little more sense if the lad had been his normal strapping healthy self, he being young and foolish and hedonistic would feed into his narcissism to be ogled in such a manor. But, Potter had clearly not been in at all good health at the time of the painting. A grotesque parody of Potter’s former handsomeness Severus would even venture to say. Not a single titillating thing about it.

So _… why?_

It soon becomes too troublesome to continue investigations in magical Norway for Severus’s presence had been enough to warrant the attention of the magical authorities.

However, not all is lost. For Severus has been able to track down the full name of this Kalim fellow mentioned in the letters Potter had supposedly sent to Ronald, to find that he is a real individual that transversed between muggle and magical artist circles, and he had been in Norway around the time that Potter had also been in Norway. This time Severus decides to play things smarter by attempting to make himself out as if he is a fan of the artist and not searching for Potter specifically, beginning to collect the man’s books of poetry and published art portfolios in order to properly sound in-the-know.

On top of this, in his quest to see what other places truly did exist in Norway that had also been found in Potter’s supposed memory vials, Severus had been able to chat up a thankfully oblivious gossiping muggle bookstore-brewery-poetry beatnik pub owner over by the nearest muggle university. She said that someone matching Potter’s sickly description had apparently done a great deal of life modeling work as a means to help pay for his education and his medical bills in order to get his life back on track after experiencing some severe racism at a posh British boarding school, as well as horrific treatment by his ex who had been very abusive.

Money troubles? _Potter?_ With _his_ inheritance?

Apparently Potter had stood out the most to her due to the fact that he used to sit in a quiet corner and grumble over the memorization worksheets his doctor had prescribed him since the boy was recovering from health problems relating to being forced to ingest some sort of vile concoction sold to the school’s sports team that was supposed to make them into perfect strapping young winners. Only to instead cause health problems that included memory loss. Reportedly Potter’s memories of school were a bit of a blur despite passing most of his classes save for chemistry.

Hmm. Seeing as how Potter was in both the magical and muggle worlds… perhaps he did remember Hogwarts, but in a limited capacity?

She goes on to speculate that there may have been cult involvement at this unnamed school and a huge UK government cover up because there had been a big hubbub five-to-six years ago of thugs wearing black sheets with skull masks running amok all over the UK yet only the smaller media outlets covered it. She talked about rumors of men and women dressed in odd costumes declaring themselves the rulers of the land and the people they were shooting at random were of the mud. Potter had said to her that the concoctions he’d been made to ingest were not legal and bought from a criminal syndicate. She took this to mean that the school had close ties with the cult for it was no secret that the infamous death cultists from the UK sold illegal things to finance their machinations. Especially in recent years where a great deal of goods stolen from other countries during the Empire days was flooding black markets everywhere.

…By illegal goods she was referring to the Ministry being forced to sell their worldly treasures just to stay afloat. Severus would need to write a warning to Kingsley that he’d lost control over containment of magical artifacts.

But more importantly was the account of Potter’s behavior, namely requiring medical intervention for troubles with his memory.

Memory troubles were a clear side effect of an in-depth obliviation done incorrectly…

Yet then again moonstone poisoning could lead to memory troubles as well. Perhaps even a combination of both, particularly when paired with an obviously fabricated tale of Hogwarts and whomever had been his poisoner.

Potter not remembering much of his schooling, it apparently all being a blur, Granger going missing with her parents sending complaints that she had not learnt a thing at school…

Hm.

She also gives him the name of a new tracible artist, apparently something of a big deal hot shot photographer, and Severus was in luck because they still had a collection of his on display at a high-end art gallery in Oslo and one of his models had been this fellow that might be who Severus was looking for.

So off to Oslo Severus went, having to pay to go into the posh post-modernism art gallery, and very quickly getting hopelessly lost within the large building.

It was far from the worst place Severus had gotten lost in, though after some time he did wonder why there was very little usable seating, or why there was a perfectly usable chair but none could sit in it because it was apparently some sort of artwork that acted as an obscure metaphor for the argument of what was and what was not art?

_What even-?_

He had wanted to remain just another face in the crowd, but eventually had no choice but to ask one of the staff where he could find the photographer’s work.

The next twenty minutes, Severus thinks back on it later, when he has safely retreated to his hotel accommodations, he will never forget for as long as he may live.

His heart sunk when he had been met by a room full of pornographic photographed muggle portraits of nudes. They all bore scars, deformities, or missing limbs, many merely looking sickly. Men, women, and by Salazar some children! Ranging from far too young newborns to far too old to have their flabby bits hanging about out in the open instead of properly concealing them up under clothing. It was a horrific sick macabre fetishist’s wet dream disguised for the public viewing as some sort of thinly veiled “artistic expression” or whatever the photographer had been rambling about in the self-entitled artist statement. Each small collection of stills for every individual model is given a short biography explaining what they suffer from but Severus cannot see how exposing themselves in such ways to be at all “empowering” in any way.

To be fair, normally he would not give a toss about muggles and their hippie tendencies to expose themselves with the trust that it was making a statement or selling a product like a car rather than only selling the photographs to be used as fodder for desperate hormonal teenagers who could not get better pornography aside from the men’s underpants section in catalogues or the billboard over the nearby freeway with a big picture advertising women’s bikini’s that one had to stare at for a very long time in an attempt to try to memorize every detail before going back home.

This was different however. For as Severus attempted to keep his pace measured so as not to give way his distain, always fearing what would greet his eyes next: a photo of a bare naked infant with a cleft palette, an extremely elderly gentleman with floppy bits everywhere but no nether parts at all because he’d been castrated as a boy, a young woman whose face near melted off as a teenager from a lover’s tryst by candlelight with her high school teacher gone wrong in a hay loft…

 _Then…_ there was Potter.

In his full glory.

He freezes in place, stares at the black and white blown up photograph of one very exhausted looking, worryingly gaunt Potter, in a very cruel twist the photographer had managed to somehow imbue the otherwise colorless photograph with green pigment to color in Potter’s eyes. Forcing Severus’s gaze to remain locked to the one and only thing the boy had inherited from Lily.

 _Model: H. Porter_ the plaque read.

Far less original than the name the boy had gone by in the magical world, yet somehow Severus was positive beyond a doubt that Potter was not necessarily wanting to hide his identity this time around.

The boy had been made to pose in an array of provocative seductive ways, but the largest of the series was perhaps the most scandalous Severus had ever seen! With the boy’s front torso lain down upon the foreground with his pert bum raised upward behind him, the curve of his bloated belly could just barely be seen in stark contrast to the jutting of his ribs out from the skin. The column of the spinal cord and the way the ribs poke out from under Potter’s skin, plus the way that deposits of fat have settled in odd places subtracts from anything erotic Severus would personally find from the image, the scars are in stark view. All of them. All over his body.

Potter’s expression is resigned to his fate.

As well as being very bitter.

For once Potter does not evoke a spitting image of his father, for his illness has contorted what had been inherited from James into something completely unrecognizable…

Save for the expression. The expression was all Lily’s.

The scars give him away however, more specifically the faint, but still defined shape of the bolt on his forehead.

The expression she had once looked upon Severus with after his first greatest betrayal of their friendship. His betrayal of her, by denouncing her very right for existence.

The biography Potter had given expressly states that he had been warned off of speaking up lest he suffer legal consequences for slander. Charges that he could not afford to fight at the moment.

Yet when he could not speak he could simply show and allow the damage done to his body speak for itself of how obsessing over something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things had caused damage to a mortal human being with lasting consequences. Very few if any from his prep school days may actually see these photographs, but if someone does Potter had wanted them to gawk at the price it had taken all so that the very few could keep up their precocious lifestyles.

 _It had been a very stupid war that revolved around who had the rights to shag and marry who regardless of other’s basic human rights of having a choice for the sake of keeping up shallow appearances._ The plaque read. _One that had nothing to do with me as a child and yet I had been dragged into anyway._

_No one can own me if there is nothing for them to claim as only theirs to possess._

The words are dripping with such malice that Severus wonders if Potter might be referring to the Weasleys running him out of the country. It is phrased as if Potter is furious for being in the actual war but given the use of the words “shag” and “marry” Severus doubted it had been about the actual war at all, instead Severus got the feeling that it had been more of a private war done behind closed doors when Ginevra wasn’t screeching at him in public. Not the least is the fact that Potter had no reason to object to his role in the war in the first place.

He had been the hero. What more could a wizard ask for?

What reason would a hero need to expose himself like this in the first place? By all accounts Potter should be in a bed at one of his lavish inherited estates wearing the finest of silken robes, recovering so that he might follow in his father’s footsteps with the Aurar department and become a central pillar of wizarding society.

Possibly fixing the broken justice system while he was at it. Harry Potter was many things but he was at least dependable where it mattered. Him neglecting such serious issues just when the world needed him most was not at all like Harry Potter.

Likely it would seem that there was indeed something more sinister afoot in relation to the Weasley’s involvement in Potter’s relationship with Ginevra.

This was only creating more questions than answers.

XXX

_A week after making a hasty retreat on a muggle flight to Amsterdam after spotting local Aurars milling about his hotel and some of the places he walked to without evading them…_

Once the books Severus had ordered on this Kalim fellow come in through a magical book vendor Severus leaves Norway (very quickly, the authorities had been called and they were looking for him) in order to lurk around the edges on Ginevra’s glamorous new life as a quidditch superstar in Amsterdam.

In contrast to Potter’s exile Ginevra is living the high life, looking as fit and healthy as ever as she flaunts herself to her adoring public. Surrounding herself with the young and beautiful who throw exclusive parties in high-end clubs that she frequents almost every night, not even bothering to sign autographs in person instead she has her signature engraved upon special edition beater bats, and lives within a posh modern magical section of the city that can only be entered through warded doorways found in some of the nicest looking alleyways Severus has ever seen. A place where the stone pathways looked so pristine that one could eat off of the ground! And there are flowers and idiotically high priced little shops absolutely everywhere!

Now, Severus may not be an expert on the income of the average quidditch beater, but he did have a passing knowledge of people requiring glowing references in order to rent premium spaces in upscale locations. Posh people tended to prefer to live next to riffraff who have been checked over to within an inch of their lives, including having their teeth checked, just to make certain that she’d be “of the right sort”.

Something Ginevra did not have, given that she had vandalized her last flat and caused a great deal of disturbances that had included the neighbors taking note that she had half-killed the Savior. While she did come from one of the Sacred-Twenty-Eight Purebred families, it was not of a notoriously wealthy one, and just as Severus had discovered in Norway the rest of Europe had grown a sour opinion of “cult terrorists” who were seemingly so obsessed with inbreeding that they wanted to kill everyone with a larger gene pool just so that they could fuck their cousins-aunties-sisters-daughters without having the women be enticed away by having choices.

Suffice to say Death Eaters were the butt of an awful lot of jokes.

If Severus weren’t so embarrassed, to _not_ have made the inbreeding hillbilly cult obsessed with who got to fuck who to satisfy a incest kink connection as a teenager, he’d enjoy the jokes just as much. At the time there had been a great deal of weight placed upon the glamor of nobility that Severus had been blind to anything else that, _really_ , should have stuck out to a teenaged boy like all inappropriate jokes do.

Ginevra is one of that inbred group. She would have needed serious money getting to where she currently is.

There was no way that she could have bought the place either, seeing as how further investigation proved that Ginevra had moved into the neighborhood around six-ish months after her grand escape with her paramour after the botched poisoning of Harry Potter. Not nearly long enough to have save up for it given she had no job or family money to shell out for the place.

Could she have mooched funds off of this other man she had been seeing behind Potter’s back? Possibly…

Yet that would not account for why she has been able to live in such open opulence where she got to be the famous little starlet who did not need to finish her education for she had the money to buy her way out of needing to do anything significant with her life, or at least repay her parents who had to scrape together funds in order to put her through Hogwarts’s high tuition, and Potter was forced to hide and sell his body to artists just to finish out his own education at a half-rate cheap alternative program that cost less for one year than what one would need for a Hogwarts supply list for two years of proper schooling, as if he hadn’t had the funds nor the ability to go back to his country in order to coast off of winning the war for the rest of his life.

There is a large discrepancy in wealth between the small-time magical village university that Potter had been exiled to in order to finish out an education in areas of study that he had shown zero interest in at Hogwarts in order to “make a life for himself”. Whilst Ginevra, who had flunked most of her repeated sixth year education since she no longer needed to impress Potter given that at the time her single-minded goal of becoming the rich and famous Mrs. Potter had seemed to be in the bag so there was apparently no point in even trying, and had not even finished the first semester of her final year, and had come from a family who had to subside on hand-me-downs and had no spare monetary means to support the lifestyle of a drunken party girl, was living a lifestyle of someone who had a great deal of consistent large amounts of income along with enough connections to pull strings in order to allow her to live the highlife she now enjoyed without consequence to her past behavior as the demoness who had caused Potter and her family no end of embarrassment.

Did Ginevra somehow manage to steal most of the Potter family fortune?

It would explain the stark differences between herself and Potter. For it was already clear that without Potter hogging her spotlight Ginevra did not have to share the fame. Between her career and the money to buy her into certain social circles she did not have need to ask for Potter’s input in order to do whatever she wanted. She had schemed for most of her life to become Mrs. Potter, and when she had gotten him she had clearly been upset that she had taken on a relationship with a young man who required a great deal of care due to his body’s weakened state. For indeed Potter’s need for rest and constant medical attention must not have been very fun at all for a narcissistic little up and coming socialite. That the only parties she’d be allowed to attend without scandal were the boring Ministry functions, that she’d be little more than set dressing in comparison to Potter’s role in the magical world, nothing more than a wife, not even always coming in second given that Potter surrounded himself by those who were far more talented, prestigious, and accomplished than her.

And what had been the center focus of her entire life?

To become nothing but a wife to a rich and famous wizard.

Not as fun as she had expected. No, he knows full well that Ginevra had pined for a whirlwind romance where she would always take center stage. She had wanted what was depicted in those trashy novels that Purebred mothers give to their daughters in order to make the arranged marriage out to be potentially a glamourous affair. The novels where the rich and affluent wizard revolved his entire world around the hapless maiden as if only she mattered and not her ability to bear children.

_No one can own me if there is nothing for them to claim as only theirs to possess._

To possess Potter, own him so that she could claim to be better than others just by marrying the Savior.

It had been the fame she had wanted all along. At one point she must have realized that for Potter the party was long over and it had been time for him to move forward with his responsibilities that did not center around her and her desires for a party lifestyle where she would be the little queen bee. Responsibilities where she would forever be overshadowed because she is not the center of everyone’s attention. If she were to marry him then she’d forever be trapped as Mrs. Potter for the rest of her life outshined even by her own children in fame, if he left her then she’d be without his money to support her newly discovered drunken lifestyle.

So she poisoned him and managed to remove him from the equation. Forcing Potter to run for his life, or at the very least be left without his memories to know to get the law involved.

Trouble was how did she manage to get her mitts on the money?

More importantly where was Potter now?

Was he even still alive?

This question plagued Severus as he knew he hadn’t a chance to get within ten feet of the little chit to give her brain a thorough search. His only other leads were back in Norway yet at the moment it was too risky to go back there given that people knew, not the exact reasons why, but they had been able to tell that anyone from Britain looking for Potter was trouble.

Severus needed to find the boy. Three years had passed and it may be already too late.

With no other options Severus turned toward the artists Potter had associated with, now knowing where to look under the alias Henrika S. Evans/Henri Evans/or just H. S. Evans he had very little difficulties finding plenty, far too many for Severus’s already scarred beyond repair mind, images of a very… very, very nude Potter. Progressively looking less and less like his father and more feminine, but given that the boy was prostrating himself like a whore Severus chalked that up to a combination of the lad still not properly recovering from his illness and the fact that he was showing off his nakedness in such an illicit manner.

Selling his body.

Like a common trollop.

While using his mother’s maiden name.

Little shit had better be missing half his memories to dare desecrate Lily’s memory in such a way.

Not to say it was all horrifically terrible, many of the artists’ other works were inspiring and while Severus could not bring himself to appreciate the works that included Potter, he did rather like many that did not.

Particularly the salacious poetry of that Kalim fellow. Severus, always having been something of a sinful man, even if he never-… well. He read the man’s book of salacious poetry with great relish. The young women and men described is masterful, in some places going into such moving emotional and physical detail that Severus dreamed of it at night. Occasionally there would be an accompanying illustration to follow him into slumber where Severus was able to focus on something softer instead of the many horrors he had to endure over the course of his forty years of life. A secret delicious delight that only seemed to get better in more recent years as the poet got better practiced, something Severus would turn to in order to unwind from yet another long day of perfecting his art critic persona and facing nothing but dead ends.

…That is until he came across another image of a very nude sun kissed Potter and realized that the young man described in the previous passages had been-

“GAH!”

The book gets ejected across the room.

When he managed to find the little imp- Severus swears to himself as he splashes cold water onto his face- if the boy still lives he would be giving the hedonistic twat a long reprimand of the dangers of dating artists.

Over a glass filled with four fingers of whiskey on the rocks Severus steels himself for what he has to do. For he knows that he must pick the latest book of poems up off of the floor and comb through every sentence for any hints of where Potter had been with the philandering pervert.

It takes a very long time before Severus manages to gather up the courage.

In the end Severus only takes note of the date- for all of the conquests are given a date and season next to the title- and then Severus takes note of which company had published the book and what exactly does “freshly off the presses” mean in relation to _how_ recently this particular book had hit the shelves. He then, after accumulating all of this information, asks a source of his down by a tourist muggle coffee shop where he could find what this… _artist_ had been up to in Iceland around three or more months ago.

Iceland. Potter had to have been in Iceland mere months ago during the summer.

If Severus could find the artist then he’d be one step away from finding Potter.

XXX

_While enjoying a very snowy Icelandic winter where the Yule Lads are out causing all sorts of mischief in the darkness of the night during the last twelve days post-Christmas…_

In hindsight Severus should really not have procrastinated for so long in regards to finding Potter. If he had been a few months earlier he would have managed to avoid the cold in the unrelenting darkness, and perhaps, not a guarantee, but perhaps he would have been able to find Potter sooner.

That… or he could have just tracked Granger down… wherever she might be-

Okay, perhaps not Granger. No one knew where Granger had gone, not even Ronald- well, especially not Ronald. Given how things had ended between them. There were no trails for Severus to follow as far as Granger had been concerned. She, being muggleborn, had melted back into the muggle world and likely long before the war had started she had at some point destroyed Minerva’s records of where to find her parents. Bar the occasional ill-intentioned letter sent from her father in critique of Hogwarts, owls always returned back to their senders tired, hungry, and irritable after attempting to send missives to Granger directly. All indications that she was so far away out of the country that owls could not travel such distances. Without a loyal phoenix such as Fawkes and his ability to travel long distances they had no means to properly find her.

There was not even a guarantee that she would be of a state of mind to remember Potter at all if this theme of memory loss seems to pan out the way Severus is beginning to suspect it might.

To be fair, Severus is making a great deal of headway given that he had only just started his investigation back in September when Potter had yet to return and everyone had been frantic. It was amazing how much had transpired within such a short amount of time. Going from cleaning up Ginevra’s messy flat to watching the northern lights after having to politely step outside after once again recognizing Potter posed in the nude for an artist to use. By far looking like a completely different individual entirely from before when he had been the spitting image of his father, yet like always his body littered by extremely distinctive scars gave the boy away.

To be fair, Severus had discovered where Potter will be come February. Having to endure the sight of the latest series of Potter nudes- which had been particularly jarring this time around given that Potter had been strung up in multiple compromising ways with rope in this Japanese shibari method- was not in vain. For Severus had been able to converse with a gathering of artists and had discovered very telling snippets of crucial information, not very much, given that it would have been noticed if Severus hyper fixated on any one model like a voyeuristic stalker, and all they desired to discuss was the art itself and shibiari, but since Severus was posing as an art critique from the UK they had been more than willing to promote the “career” of a model. Telling Severus about Potter’s “resumé”, as it were. In a purely, almost appallingly clinically professional manor.

For the past two years Potter spent a few weeks in Iceland during the summer and in February Potter visits an artist residency in Ottawa Canada as a guest model. In March Potter attends a conference in Oregon, and as his reputation as Henrika S. Evans grows amongst artists the more he seemed to pop up in both magical and muggle artistic circles as an object for them to use.

Apparently they enjoyed the challenges that came with incorporating Potter’s scars, never usually the one on the forehead, for that had faded into nearly nothing after the demise of the Dark Lord, but the smattering of curses and hexes that Potter must have gotten during the war.

Also, as Severus lightly scanned their surface memories, apparently, several of them had been Potter’s past lovers.

Both men and women.

Which had been only significant to make note of due to that all of the men Potter had apparently bedded were… quite ugly in Severus’s personal assessment. Much older, older than Severus for many of them, and-… just… old. And ugly. With wrinkles and greying hair. Scrapings from the bottom of the barrel really, likely Potter only had bedded any of them due to some deep psychological damage making him believe that he should settle for whatever attention he got. A far cry from what would be waiting for Potter back in Britain where the young and very pretty would have happily taken Potter regardless of his health. With none of this inhumane selling of Potter’s naked body to be displayed for the consumption of the masses.

No, back in Britain Harry Potter is revered. Perhaps things with Ginevra had gone down in flames but she is hardly the only witch or wizard from an acceptable family lineage to salvage the Potter line with. Let alone Potter’s pick of far more talented and… genuinely kind half-bloods and muggleborns from his school days who would jump at the chance at being his friend or lover if he so much as looked their way. Little doubt even the smallest romantic gesture would be more than enough to satisfy them, and only a complete fool would leave such tokens of support for their careers abandoned in a vandalized flat as if the expensive professional quidditch equipment were nothing more than disposable toys.

To his own surprise Severus could not help but to pity how far Potter had fallen. The boy truly had put his all into attempting to make the world a little better by cleaning up the aftermath of the war as best that he could, given his condition. He had done his best for Ginevra even when she clearly refused to appreciate a singular scrap of his typical Potter tokens of devotion to her. He had won the war and yet had been unable to enjoy the victory.

Now however…

Severus did not know what was going to happen once he caught up to Potter. Ideally Potter will be alive, forthcoming with events that have transpired in the past three years, if not fully cooperative as Severus brings him back to Britain. Granted if he had been obliviated Severus would be required to do a great deal of explaining, and if not then hopefully the boy will be humbled enough by his prostitution lifestyle to allow Severus to lend aid without fuss.

Provided, of course, that Potter would still be alive. His life at the moment looked… very bleak.

Severus knew that the smartest thing to do at that moment was to cultivate his persona with the already established artists so that he’d discover what it was that art critiques did and have an easier time infiltrating this retreat that Potter would be attending based on recommendation alone instead of an actual resumé.

The smart thing would be to stay in place.

Right where he was.

It’s… just that it’s cold… and dark… and…

_“Hiiiiiiii~!”_

There is a… small subspecies of troll… peeping in through the window.

XXX

_After getting the hell out of Iceland after having one or two misadventures with the Yule Lads, a run-in with a bloody massive cat digging itself out from under the ground at a graveyard, and having to sample fermented shark meat in order to keep cover…_

Canada isn’t half bad in Severus’s humble opinion. Everyone seems to be so polite. So very much without personified manifestations of the darkest days of winter in the form of trickster troll spirits getting underfoot just for the sheer entertainment of it. The weather was still dreary but when Severus begins asking for information about this artist retreat the muggle organizers are nothing but forthcoming.

So much so that Severus is able to covertly find Potter’s contact information in a file drawer and track an address and Post Office box to the far western Canadian Province of British Columbia.

Ha! Success!

Finally!

Severus contemplates leaving a phone message since he had managed to get Potter’s number as well but decides against it lest the lad try to run off.

No, Severus wanted their reunion to be a surprise.

And treasure the gobsmacked look on Potter’s face!

When he arrives via floo transport it is sleeting and cold and wet outside, but thankfully that is but a mild concern for he is sheltered inside a warm transport depot and the driver of his shuttle has parked beneath a covered pick-up location. Severus may have been slowed slightly due to the weather along with the fact that Potter’s physical address is warded to prevent uninvited visitors but lurking about the muggle Post Office manages to afford Severus the opportunity to see a pretty young woman in sunglasses and maroon long coat retrieve parcels from Potter’s allotted mail locker.

Curious.

Was she a new flame? Secretary? Either way she clearly had a strong connection to Potter for she has access to his mail. Later Severus’s suspicions were all but confirmed when he discovers she is allowed into his home seeing as how Severus had watched her dissolve into thin air around the same area where Potter’s property should be.

He will take note of where she comes and goes so that she can lead him to Potter.

XXX

For the whole past week Harry has started to think that either the moonstone poisoning has finally lead to madness or Harry’s going to have to finally talk to the therapist about closely examining the confusing feelings Harry has been nursing for Snape because Harry has started to see the man, or more accurately Harry has begun to see the man’s _likeness_ in strangers on the street, out of the corners of Harry’s eyes pretty much everywhere Harry goes save for when Harry is at home.

It’s really weird because as soon as Harry turns full attention towards where Harry had glimpsed Snape there is either someone who is very much not Snape, or man wearing black while bundled up for the weather.

But here’s the thing: Harry can tell that the bundled up man and all of the different strangers are (likely) the same man.

Harry _does_ know that someone has been watching. A singular someone, and not in a they-are-all-out-to-get-me sense, but in a far more practical and sane had-experience-with-being-followed-or-had-followed-others-before-during-Hogwarts-and-thus-there-is-no-way-in-hell-so-many-people-can-possibly-be-exhibiting-the-classic-tell-tale-signs-of-stalking-behavior-all-at-once. Because Harry does know classic following behavior when Harry sees it, especially when Harry pulled a fast one and started following the guy following Harry which had led to the creeper getting so confused, breaking character to look around wildly until Harry allowed the creeper to catch a brief glimpse of Harry who then started following Harry again until Harry pulled another fast one and the cycle repeated, that there was absolutely no way that they had just so happened to be coincidentally going the same way as Harry.

Though Harry feels conflicted about whether to evade the creeper or to keep going about the day like normal, which this singular wizard (only a wizard would wear a cloak, robes, and everything out in this weather, the face may change but the clothes stay pretty consistent) dressed in all black is obviously getting more than a little frustrated over Harry’s clear indecision. Given the runaround he’s had to undergo through the whole city and a little into the countryside Harry has been giving him the slip in. Not needing to rely on apparition points has served Harry well in getting the man completely lost as well as stranding him in some of the _Magical Naturalist Society’s_ favorite winter spots.

At least once Harry has sensed that the mysterious man had followed Harry into a life drawing class while hidden under some kind of enchantment, and Harry knew that the paranoia was justified given that the door closing with a slam after the creeper had fled in horror had startled everyone, and Harry was positive that hapless mail carriers did not travel up six flights of stairs at a university just to get a signature for a package.

If it weren’t for the fact that Harry’s post-death/post-shite-getting-weird-because-the-three-Hallows-were-involved-in-changing-the-very-make-up-of-Harry’s-magic heightened senses could feel horror, mortification, and distilled prudishness roiling off of the stalker in waves Harry would have handed the man his own ass a million times over by now and then shipped him to hospital with a police escort.

Harry’s powers of intuition were not perfect, nor were they always working, but Harry has learned to know when they were working and how to listen to them.

…To a degree.

Harry is still new to this so more practice is needed! Okay? Having powers of intuition and inconsistently being able to read intent is not an easy ability to suddenly be bestowed with after a whole lifetime of being blind to everything outside of Hogwarts and the small spaces Harry had been locked up in. It’s something Harry can sit down and come to terms with or figure out how to control like Harry had been able to do with the popping out of places that weren’t apparition points or with being able to concentrate really hard when Harry is cuddling up to someone and be able to _feel_ their body working down to the faint firing of their synapses.

It’s more like Harry’s ability to banish ghosts into the afterlife, but more accessible and it happed instinctually on a more regular basis.

At the moment his intuition is telling Harry that the creeper is friend rather than someone who deserved to be hit with a frying pan between the legs.

Also Harry’s observation is proving that the man, thoroughly exhausted after the past week, is now gearing up for a proper confrontation in a non-magical park. For he has stopped keeping his distance and is clearly awaiting the perfect opportunity to approach when there are little to no other pedestrians close by.

Aaaaand because it is winter that means only a handful of people with their dogs are out and about because who the hell else would want to voluntarily be out in the cold when they could be keeping warm inside their houses with their televisions and hot chocolates instead?

So basically Harry can’t just pull a fast right and evade the guy in the crowd.

Which Harry is not going to put up with. Intuition may say the guy is harmless, but morally the prick hasn’t a foot to stand on and **_Harry is not having with it!_**

So when they reach a bend in the sidewalk where they are somewhat obscured by trees and a World War memorial monument Harry takes the first initiative and spins around to confront him first with bear spray clutched in one fist and Giles Potter’s dagger in the other which also doubled as a wand holder because the handle could be opened to reveal a compartment for a very small secret wand.

You know in case he had an occasion to hex the fellow while he was in the process of stabbing ‘em. Despite claiming they were always peaceful victims of the wider world that hated magic, Purebreds sure liked to collect a lot of things designed to kill other people in cruel and unusual ways.

“FEK OFF MOUTH BREATHER! WOT IS SO DAMN INTERESTIN’ EH? ALL DAMN WEEK YEH HAVE BEEN UNDERFOOT AN’ IF YEH DON’T HAVE A FEKKING MIRACLE TO EXCUSE YEHSELF YEH PRICK IS GONNA BE AS GOOD AS- !

The wizard had startled but instead of attacking he pulled off the hood of his cloak, his sunglasses, and tugged down his scarf to reveal…

Snape’s face underneath.

Not in a horror movie way. Thank all the gods to have ever existed. But as a living breathing and very much not mutilated Snape.

…Y-… yu?”

“Allow me to explain. I-” The wizard began in Snape’s voice but was cut off when Harry dropped the self-defense weapons. Soon followed by Harry forgetting how the leg function for standing up worked.

As far as triggers for a surprise PTSD attack went it was pretty bad. So much so that much later Harry has a hard time piecing together exact details because of the overwhelming overload of memories colliding with emotions and mixing in with being completely unable to brace for this kind of situation made Harry’s brain sort of shut down. Harry recalls that Snape had somehow managed to keep Harry from collapsing completely to the ground while Harry had been in the throes of a fainting spell, and that Harry had a very painful upset stomach as a consequence of said fainting. Harry had been a mess of shaking and sobbing along with having a genuine Lady Macbeth moment because Harry just could not stop verbally focusing on the vivid memory of the very last time Harry had ever seen Snape with his blood seeping through Harry’s fingers.

Snape had to pat Harry’s face a lot, he did not slap Harry, but the pats to the face did sting just slightly enough to get Harry to focus just enough on breathing and not hyperventilating.

In all actuality things might have been perfectly fine if Snape had kept his mouth shut and helped escort Harry over to the nearest café or public building with seating in the front foyer, or even the hospital so that Harry could have a chance to calm down, get something to drink, have an explanation session while Harry had the calm down…

But no. Snape was apparently in “mission” mode or something because the first thing that came out of his mouth when Harry had managed to begin being able to not be overwhelmed in a debilitated way was the exact wrong thing to say!

He tells Harry that they are both going back to Hogwarts.

Because why have and honest to god conversation about feelings when THE CHOSEN SAVIOR must be kidnapped and shipped back into a magical dystopian hellhole to be used for the benefit of politicians until Harry got slaughtered by someone who was offended that “The Savior” wasn’t up to scratch in fulfilling unrealistic fantasies of the general Purebred populace of fascist mass murdering arseholes.

And when Harry had attempted to articulate something along the lines of:

“Nonononono I’ll be eviscerated on sight! Please stop attempting to kidnap me. It’s quite rude to do to people you know!”

To which Snape had started going on about bloody stupid popularity _and bloody hell_ Harry had almost forgotten how absolutely pretentious the man could be when going on and on about how famous Saint Harry Potter is with fans and oodles of admirers. Which is either ironic or pure ignorance, or a sign of stupidity, given that a lot of Harry Potter’s so-called “biggest fans” had technically included Tom Riddle and a whole bunch of people, even Ron, who at one point or another had almost killed Harry on purpose or by accident.

Like hell did Harry ever wanted to see another Harry Potter fan ever again!

“No of course nobody misses _me_ you daft fool! _I’m_ not Harry Potter! Do I _look_ like him to you?”

Snape had taken _this_ to apparently mean that Harry was suffering from some kind of memory loss, or obliviation followed by false memories, even going as far as to believe that he was _“rescuing”_ Harry!

_The bloody nerve!_

So Harry, at wits end, _kissed_ the man, full on the mouth, in order to shut him the hell up.

And also to get Snape to slacken his grip in shock so that Harry could safely pop away from him in the snowy cold of the park in favor of transporting, _alone_ , directly into Harry’s warm front foyer where Harry was able to stumble out of Harry’s boots and curl up on the rug in the next room until Harry’s brain can stop screaming long enough to take note that Hedwig has hopped down beside Harry to watch the silent conniption fit in clear concern.

XXX

Severus gropes wildly at the air where Potter had been not even a second ago, checks the area around him just to be absolutely certain the boy had not somehow manage to duck and roll out of the way. Then Severus has to take out his map (courtesy of his hotel) of all the apparition points in the Provence in order to determine if… no. There is no possibly way that Potter could have apparated.

Port-key perhaps? Severus did not hear Potter speak any words to activate it but given the thoroughly inappropriate… accosting that Potter had savaged upon Severus perhaps the shock had briefly numbed his senses.

Severus had located Potter at least, not that the lad had made it particularly easy to identify him, if it were not for the boy’s voice pitching back to its low mid-puberty tones and him knowing details of the Shrieking Shack that none else would be able to have known Severus would have continued to be fooled by Potter’s... oddly effective disguise. In his pocket he can feel the glove Severus had taken off of Potter’s left hand when the lad had been in the throes of hysterics in order to properly identify the Savior through the scarring. The knit hat Severus had pulled off to examine the faint but very distinct trace of Potter’s most famous scar lay slightly trampled on the ground beside the rather ornate dagger the boy had pulled on Severus.

On the whole Severus only had more questions than answers, but the boy’s distress had been genuine as he had clearly suffered a debilitating resurgence of memories. It was far from concrete evidence of Potter’s memories being artificially altered but it was something. Such a blatantly grief-stricken reaction would not be normal for Harry Potter, at least not when it was directed at Severus if at all.

He places two fingertips to his lips, still able to feel phantom sensations of where Potter has pressed closed lips to his.

Quite obviously Potter had been driven mad at some point he determines as he stoops down to collect what Potter had dropped. Taking note of a distinct lack of any form of wand which only further confirmed his suspicions. Since when would Golden boy Harry Potter go anywhere without his wand? Severus knew the lad had at least… two wands by now. The one he had gotten at age eleven and the Elder wand, where had those disappeared to?

…Or more likely what had Ginevra stolen and used as bribes to acquire permission to live where she currently dwells? How had she gotten her position as beater for the professional quidditch team?

What a coincidence it is that Potter had been wearing women’s clothing when Ginevra had been so infamous in cruelly insinuating that Potter was far too weak, sick, and therefore effeminate for her liking.

Almost as if all this time Ginevra, or someone close to her, were punishing Harry Potter as well as getting him conveniently out of the way…

Yet then again Severus still only had faint scraps of clues to indicate the depth of the situation. He will not know any more until he can sit Potter down for a very long chat… provided of course that the boy was in a state of mind to be making any lick of sense of his own timeline of events.

More likely than not Potter will be in no state of mind to be giving Severus concrete answers, only more questions and clues for Severus to follow.

He heaves a deep disparaging sigh at the thought.

Well at the very least he has found Potter.


	6. Numb Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: panic attacks, disassociation episode, overthinking everything
> 
> Harry has some difficulties processing the big reveal, but gets some comfort anyway because while life can be unfair it also isn't all terrible all the time.  
> Snape doesn't fair all that well either.
> 
> Please eat, sleep, and take a little break if you need to before starting this chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason why i've written Harry the way I have is because from my own experience with recovering from stressful toxic situations on top of healing from physical trauma the body tends to no longer be capable of handling certain stressors the same way you had before you got hurt. Just like with any physical wound you sustain from the job being pushed beyond your limits mentally and emotionally is also a wound that takes time to heal and then relearn coping techniques you use to keep yourself functioning when encountered by a new stressor (such as a pandemic). Harry isn't suffering from a psychotic break so much as Harry's brain had put it's foot down about how much it can handle at this very moment, in the effort to attempt to combat the stress Harry cannot handle right now Harry's brain tries to make up an excuse to not need to look too closely on the subject of Snape coming back and everything that means by telling itself a little white lie until Harry is in a headspace where Harry can deal with the fact that not only had Harry been lied to about Snape's death by people Harry had trusted but also those same people really want to drag Harry back into things despite... everything that had happened... and the fact that they refuse to respect Harry's right as a consenting legal adult to never want to go back given that they had just used him as a tool for murder and do not seem to recognize that it had been wrong.
> 
> The problem is that Harry is still consciously aware that the situation does need to be addressed sooner rather than later, thus the internal conflict of two opposing ideas of how to proceed. It also does not help that Harry is very ill on top of everything else and thus there is a hard limit to how Harry can respond at the moment.
> 
> As for Snape's reaction he's also going to have to reconcile with a lot, most importantly of all in later chapters he will need to examine his own biases because the second that James Potter is taken out of the equation Harry is going to seem like a drastically different person to what he had thought he had known, and that is not something he can unsee about himself, but for the moment he's just going to need a little while to allow himself to be heartbroken all over again, but this time he actually has some concrete answers as well as someone who can actually understand what he is going through.

Feeding Hedwig helps a little to further stabilize Harry’s mind, as does taking the emergency medication Harry has been prescribed to combat the symptoms of debilitating anxiety attacks. Taking care of a few little things around the house forces Harry to keep the mind grounded just enough so that the situation could be properly addressed without getting overwhelmed again. In this Harry is able to take a moment to check that nothing about Harry’s body has been damaged, that Harry is safe, and to plan out what was to happen next. For Harry needed to act swiftly, later today to be more precise, in order to ensure that the situation was handled before things got too chaotic to control. Instinct may be telling Harry that the wizard Harry had just bawled their eyes out into his shoulder was a friend to be trusted, but now that Harry has had a moment to step back the only certainty this “friend” was getting from Harry is a sound beating. First the arsehole goes to the trouble of vandalizing either Snape’s corpse or hairbrush so that he can Polyjuice himself as a deceased war hero to get Harry’s attention, and then he has the nerve to try to kidnap Harry under the absolutely most insulting notion that he was “saving” the Chosen One?

Nuh uh. Harry is going give this bastard the beating to end all beatings.

Harry knew for a fact that Snape was-… had not survived the war. As much as Harry really, really, really (ect.) wanted for it to not be a lie and for there to be some-… _one good thing_ to come out of the horrible mess by having Severus Snape survive in triumph after a lifetime of heartbreak and disappointment…

But no. Harry needed to stay realistic. It hurt, a lot, but Harry needed to not fall for this very obvious trap.

So in response Harry should demand to meet in a very public place where the wizard could not be allowed to try to use his huge man body to force anything. A place that had cameras so that the true face of the wizard could be put on a record of some kind once it melted back into place.

You know, in case something did happen and Harry had to explain to the local authorities why a tiny witch has just sent a British wizard to hospital where Canadian doctors will have to work to un-bloody-pulpify him. Harry was not going to look forward to the ensuing long explanation about spending all of those years at Hogwarts being forced to become a child soldier, but at the very least this m _i_ ght just make the mad pointy hatted fools across the pond think twice about trying to get their “savior” back through kidnapping.

With that thought in mind Harry picks up the kitchen phone and dials.

“Yes? Hello?” Comes Snape’s voice and Harry has to press their face to the cold window just to evoke the gasping reflex so that they can keep breathing.

“Meet me at the Horticultural Institute this afternoon at three-thirty sharp. Today. Ursula Minor wing. By the cactuses that you got lost in when you tried to follow me out of my work on Tuesday. Come alone, if you bring anyone else to help you try to kidnap me there will be painful consequences.” By that Harry’s not certain if security will have to be called to take down the wizard or if Harry just might get worked up enough to draw blood and send him to hospital.

Harry had been conditioned by Dumbledore to be a _weapon_ after all. Harry was advertised as a hero but that still did not negate the fact that the old man had, in his own unorthodox sort of way so he could avoid any accusations questioning the bastard’s morality, forced Harry to learn how to kill.

A lot.

There is a long pause on the other end of the phone line. Long enough that Harry struggles to not fall into another flashback about all the times Dumbledore had gaslighted Harry.

“…How did you manage to get the number to my hotel?”

At that Harry breathes out focusing on the present.

In actuality Harry did not now, had absolutely no other conscious thought while dialing other than needing to get ahold of the bastard so that Harry could arrange a time and place to throttle the fool.

“The real Snape would know well enough how sneaky I can be, particularly when I’ve just been stalked for a full week by an insensitive goon masquerading as the bravest, most intelligent wizard in all of Britain. Trouble incarnate I think is how he had put it when he’d been _alive_. Something you will be learning very shortly after your potion wears off.”

Another pause.

“Such high praise Potter. Are you certain you are feeling well?”

“Just show up at the location so that I can glare you down for over an hour until the polyjuice wears off and I can properly tell your actual inbred face to stick it up your own good and proper.” Harry sighs in exasperation before hanging up.

XXX

Severus stares at the phone in bemusement as he resumes wiping off the lipstick that Potter’s moment of madness had stained onto Severus’s skin and he had not noticed until he had to make use of the loo in his hotel.

Polyjuice? Well Severus supposed that would be a natural assumption. Given that Potter had been led to believe that Severus had died in his arms that horrible day… upon further reflection perhaps it should not have been nearly so unexpected for the boy to have such an upset. The horrors of war toppling the perfect image of the Gryffindor utopia that Albus had constructed for the child so that when it was all torn apart by war Potter would have nothing left to live for.

Severus’s feelings toward Harry Potter are… difficult. Especially now after the boy had fallen so far from his legendary position to… this. The boy still had some fire left in him to call Severus out with the intent of exposing a fraud mascaraing as “a war hero”, as well as the reckless desire to always start fights.

But did he have a full sense of his memory intact?

Still doubtful. Given how much the boy had given up, the fame and the glory as well as the undivided adoration of the magical world which had placed the boy amongst the same ranks as Merlin and the founders of Hogwarts in the collective consciousness.

The boy had in fact openly claimed to not be Harry Potter during their brief encounter, and Severus found himself inclined to believe that the boy wholeheartedly felt he was being truthful. What with that dress, Potter’s history of illness, and the hair being far longer than it ever had… the toasted dark complexation and signs of age which have distorted the boy’s features…

Yet Lily’s eyes are the same vibrance as they always have been, thankfully.

Severus has not only found her son but he has managed to have a meeting arranged by the boy himself to ascertain Severus’s identity. Severus has an opening to get the boy to listen to him and for Severus to finally discover what events had transpired three years ago that would push Potter to leave his cushy life adored in the spotlight in favor of hoping his way to the other side of the globe while selling his body to a slew of very ugly old men who display Potter’s nude body as if Potter were some sort of common whore.

Severus will save her son, he will bring Potter back to Britain, and Potter will go on to fulfill his duties to the magical world. I may not be as easy as it had been before given how Potter had exposed himself in such lowly scandalous ways, but like his father before him Severus would not be surprised if he never encountered consequences for his actions.

Arguably this was all going far smoother than he had initially feared.

However that did not mean that the fight was over.

The daunting five hour wait for their allotted appointment is stressful, Severus is well aware of how stubborn the boy can be, it is a certainty that somehow, in some manner, Potter will make it seem as if finding Potter had been the easy part, for Potter seemed to live to ensure that nothing ever went to plan. If Severus is going to complete his mission he will need to be prepared for anything Potter may throw at him. Most likely literally given how quick the brat was to grab for his wand, or in this morning encounter’s case a dagger and a bottle of bear repellent.

Thus when Severus took pains to arrive early to their rendezvous location he is immensely relieved to catch Potter glaring at him from behind a pillar for all Severus needed to do was to settle down on a bench overlooking an array of cacti specimens and make a point to not drink out of any form of vessel.

Nearly half an hour later Potter slips out of hiding and levitates a handmade little plain white card in front of Severus’s face.

 _Sorry for kissing you_. The front reads. _But you had better have gotten his hair for the Polyjuice potion from an old comb because if I find out you desecrated his body or stole hair from him while he was still alive I’m throwing you in the river._ The inside threatens.

This is going to be priceless once the hour is up, if nothing else Severus will be able to savor Potter’s reaction-

…Or Severus may have to scrape a hysteric Potter up from the floor and play babysitter until the lad collected himself. If this morning is any indication not even this will be something that Severus will be able to enjoy in peace.

“How unexpectedly touching of you to care about the state of my Earthly remains.” He admits, albeit reluctantly. For it is… oddly kind of Potter to threaten to drown someone in the freezing icy waters of a river that conveniently flows out into the Pacific ocean for the crime of… mutilating Severus’s body. As unpleasant as the thought of being found by those who would have gleefully pissed on Severus’s corpse for fun is to have at this moment at the very least Potter seems to not possess such inclinations.

In response Potter merely sneers.

Severus turns his attention to the other objects that Potter had brought to this meeting: a cardboard filing box and an object that looks an awful lot like-

“A magnifying glass is an odd choice to bring.” Severus notes.

“The box is for you to look through in a few minutes from now, the magnifier is so that I can check your face over for any signs of plastic surgery because if you wizards in England were mad enough to start a war because if a group of your inbred wealthy hillbilly relatives got tetchy over people marrying outside of the family then you are certainly mad enough to pull other stupid shite as well.” Potter’s oddly pitched voice hisses in something that puts Severus in mind of an irritated serpent. It takes Severus a moment to overcome his speechlessness over Potter’s rather low brow critique of the Dark Lord’s rise to power.

“I highly doubt anyone would be out of their mind to attempt a permanent alteration just to meet you Potter.”

“People died over a cult of spoilt brats throwing a hissy fit over people refusing to have sex with their first cousins.” Potter states, yet Severus is not certain if it is in defense of his reasonings for suspecting that any wizard worth their salt would stoop low enough for muggle surgery or if the statement is merely ignoring Severus’s logic altogether for the purpose of cutting a slanderous comment.

“What is in the box Potter?” Evades Severus in the hopes of distracting the boy from attempting to shove the little tool in Severus’s face.

“Papers. Photos. A test of sorts to gauge whether or not your reaction would match Snape’s. He is the only person in the whole wide world who could possibly understand what his very first friend went through and what has happened to me.”

Very first-?

He is speaking about Lily.

“Your mother.” Severus finds himself speaking out loud which prompts Potter’s glare to sharpen. As if he desired to murder Severus on the spot for even mentioning her.

Fine. Severus would just have to wait patiently and allow time to prove his existence in the land of the living. Severus held zero doubts that whatever mementos Potter had selected of Lily that Severus would indeed prove himself even before the hour was up.

They do not speak further as Potter waits in tense silence, much like a bomb waiting to go off.

XXX

In actuality Harry had **_not_** brought a magnifying glass, instead Harry had placed a glamour on a stick taser disguised like a cellphone but the verbal jab against Hogwarts’s elite felt good to say. Something that Harry had always been careful to hold back so as not to hurt the Weasleys’ feelings but had never failed to escape Harry’s notice.

Thirteen minutes (because Harry is so wound up that it just couldn’t wait until it was ten minutes) before the hour is up Harry wordlessly levitates over the box and the imposter almost a little too eagerly takes hold of it so he can plunder the secrets inside.

Initially the guy’s reactions are: confusion, a few minutes where he seemed to be questioning his grip on reality, and then frantic confusion as his mind begins connecting pieces between the copies of the divorce papers, the copies of written magical contracts conditioning the terms and conditions of mum becoming James’s girlfriend not for love but for the expressly intended purpose that mum did not want to die and she had literally nowhere else to go, the two other contracts of conditions with increasingly harsher demands for the marriage and then being forced to hide with James and pretend to be his wife when mum had long since moved on and was just adding onto her long list of reasons to get a full-blown divorce, the suspicious manner that Harry’s maternal grandparents had both been killed due to someone clearly tampering with the breaks of their car and the police suspecting either aunt Petunia and/or her boyfriend at the time but being forced to throw key evidence out due to it being mishandled (which had shocked Harry to no end when Harry had found the news clippings in mum’s “reasons to be granted divorce” file), there were copies of copies of letters mum was frantically writing to pretty much everyone about Dumbledore helping James trap her by taking their wands and the invisibility cloak away and how they had isolated her from her friends, cut her off from Remus who was her ally, how they had warded her into the cottage so she could not take the baby and try to run, how the safe house was absolutely compromised from the word go because James kept going out and partying with his two Marauder buddies that he was still speaking to because Remus had taken mum’s side…

And fifteen minutes after the hour had ended the appearance of Snape did not waver nor morph, after a little while the man just sort of… dissolves _emotionally_ before Harry’s eyes but not physically. The man is obviously doing everything he can to not openly burst into tears as he covers his mouth in open horror, shoulders hunching, back curling in like a spooked cat, Snape gasps for breath through his nose as he valiantly tries to keep control while out in public but not doing very well despite himself.

Harry is undergoing a similar reaction but for entirely different reasons.

Things get awkwardly messy from there as Harry invades Snape’s bench in order to try to find any imperfections to indicate that the man before Harry is not actually Snape, to which Snape growls and responds by ripping down his collar while yanking off his cummerbund to reveal raised scarring from the vicious snakebite he had received in the Shrieking Shack that horrible night all of those years ago.

Which makes Harry faint into a crumpled heap into the man’s arms.

Naturally once Harry manages to come to there is a ringing in Harry’s ears and Harry feels downright ill with stomach upset and shaking limbs. Somehow Harry is able to convey to Snape that they needed to stand up so that Harry could transport the two of them back home though Harry is pretty positive that Harry had begun openly rationalizing Snape’s existence as a hallucination because the man gets up in Harry’s face all offended that Harry would dare call Snape a figment of the imagination, only to have to catch Harry as Harry undergoes a near fainting spell. Then in the midst of a hissy fit Snape cut himself off with a yelp as he crushes Harry in startled surprise due to Harry (somehow) managing to transport the two of them (in one piece) and the box to Harry’s front foyer where the box falls to the ground with a loud thump.

Snape spends a good while swearing creatively as soon as it becomes increasingly apparent that Harry is in no condition for rational conversation, eventually concluding that he required aid to look after Harry, Snape leaves Harry collapsed on the padded bench where Harry takes on and off shoes to futilely hollering for a house elf that Harry does not own.

Thoroughly fed up with being manhandled by specters of dead wizards from Harry’s past Harry slowly toes off their winter boots and then proceeds to trip twice as Harry slowly makes their way on unsteady legs towards the bedroom to take their medication and sleep this whole day off.

It’s really not easy to move around when one’s body would really rather prefer to curl up on the floor and ride out the shock in peace until Harry is able to come to terms with… everything. Amazing that Harry had managed to survive seven years of Hogwarts and a war given their current state.

…Then again nine years of living in a cupboard, seven years of Hogwarts, a war, and Ginny probably has fucked up Harry’s ability to deal with these sorts of situations without fainting, for possibly the rest of Harry’s life. Almost as if Harry’s body and mind were literally throwing in the towel on possessing enough Gryffindor bravado to take on any situation that comes in favor of hiding in the hopes that it will all go away.

Still, the allure of a nice soft bed for Harry’s aching bones is enough to rouse the gumption to stumble towards the stairs and crawl upward on hands and knees. Pausing every so often to listen to Snape’s increasingly pissed-off bellows throughout the house for an elf that was not going to appear. The man can move fast Harry will give the him that much credit, from the sounds of things Snape was also looking into every closet, cupboard, and room he came across, even stomping up the stairs from a floor above Harry (how’d he get up there? Is there a staircase that Harry hasn’t found yet?) into the observatory where the man eventually grows quiet.

Listening, Harry senses the man is listening. It is a listening sort of silence the man is making.

“I can hear you elf!” Snape’s voice snarls menacingly from above, or perhaps it only sounded like it is coming from above and Harry was just having an extremely symbolic vision where Harry will end up being the elf who lives in the boot cupboard that Snape was looking for all along. It puts Harry in a nostalgic frame of mind of those frightful school days filled with terror that slowly morphed into annoyance as the big, dark, edge lord act grew older and even more tiresome the longer Snape kept it up. With a sigh Harry tries to remember the old habit of tuning the man out as the landing for the bedrooms is finally in sight.

“Do not attempt to play games! Your master is- Oh for pity’s sakes Potter.” Now Snape sounds close to having a breakdown of his own, his booted feet quickly darting down from the observatory to scoop Harry up by the armpits so that Harry can stumble up the last few steps on wobbly feet that feel a little too numb and cold to work properly.

The disassociating episode… or panic attack… or whatever is bad enough that the hallucination has to worriedly follow after Harry into the master bedroom where Harry is then firmly guided away from the antique Victorian privacy screen by the closet and is instead arranged to lay down on the bed, fully clothed. Which… well maybe Harry had stumbled and got so light headed that Harry had to lean on walls just to keep upright so laying down before changing into house clothes is probably for the best…

There is quiet at least for a time. Enough of a reprieve to roll over to face the opposite painted mural wall and allow Harry’s mind to wander to less unsettling subjects, such as how unexpectedly soothing the lilac print on the quilt is, and how nice it is to be laying dow- **ohdearlord** now he’s got his hands on Harry’s _shoulder and he’s rolling Harry to face him!_

Eeeek!

Snape stares at Harry for a very long time. Not in the usual permanently annoyed just by Harry existing sort of way or the you-are-the-devil(James)-incarnate-I-can-see-him-in-your-face PTSD kind of ways that Harry had grown to expect from the man just as a rule of thumb, this time however Snape stares at Harry with something completely new crossing his face. Harry can almost hear the wheels in the man’s brain whirr as he looks at Harry’s dark skin, the shape of the bones of Harry’s face, the delicate curves of Harry’s effeminate even in male form body, and how small Harry’s left hand is compared to Snape’s since the man has yet to relinquish it from his grasp.

All things considered Snape looks more than a little faint himself. His eyes brimming with questions.

Harry does not have the energy to answer those questions.

Harry’s not even certain standing up is even an option at the moment so speaking in-depth about very personal, very painful subjects is… no.

“Accio Harriet’s pensieve. Accio Harriet’s memory vile box. Accio Lily’s trunk key.” Harry sighs struggling to sit up and ending up feeling rather grateful that the headboard is padded enough to make needing to be propped up somewhat comfortable.

The look on Snape’s face is eerily similar to Ron’s back when Harry had told Ron that James wasn’t Harry’s biological father. Harry ignores the man in favor of handing him the key to mum’s stuff and firmly removing Snape’s hand away when he tries to snatch the whole box of memory vials that Harry was using as a part of the therapy needed to piece together a cohesive timeline of Harry’s life so Harry could make sense of it all. It came with a nifty day/month/year rolling combination thingy on the outside and it could hold a lot of vials. The only catch was that one had to close the lid every time Harry moved to another month in order to access the other vials.

“Who is Harriet?” Snape speaks after getting his hand physically relocated away for the fifth time, echoing Harry’s assessment that the man was struggling to compute what was going on.

Fortunately, Harry had already placed all of the absolutely necessary glass vials into the shallow wooden pensieve basin that would answer that question and was just anxiously deliberating on whether or not anything else should be added in order to keep Snape distracted for longer so that Harry didn’t have to deal with answering questions for at least a few more hours.

“I’m just going to let my memories answer that question for me since I’m actually not certain that you will believe me if I just tell you.” Harry says, throwing in one of the books Harry keeps on the nightstand about how to pick up the pieces of one’s life after discovering that one or both of your parents tried to forcefully turn you into a son because they hated baby girls not being able to pass on some stupid surname.

“In case I faint again on our way down, my mum’s worldly possessions are on the next floor down on the first door to the right behind the secret door by the far right window that opens when you pull down the wooden lever shaped like a book titled _The Secret Room_. Don’t ask why James’s grandparents went to the trouble of designing a house with secret rooms only to have labeled the outsides of them like that. They were very old and I’m pretty sure they might have at some point forgotten how to get into a few places.” Harry warns trying to stand up only to find that Harry’s knees still don’t work quite right and Snape has to put Harry back to bed.

“Perhaps it would be for the best if I find the way myself while you remain here.” Snape says with a scowl when his final attempt to snatch up Harry’s memory box is foiled by Harry sneakily shoving it into the charmed breast pocket of Harry’s coat.

“Okay.” Harry says feeling just exhausted and not wanting to think too deeply at all about anything at the moment.

“I do hope that you will manage to collect yourself lest I require to revive you with a vial of vapors like a distressed maiden incapable of handling my surprising return from the dead.” Says Snape even though his tone indicates that he might be in need of some vapors as well.

In the past this would prompt Harry to get defensive but an odd side effect of having to deal with Ginny for so long has forced Harry to learn how to very pointedly not rise to the bait.

“Somehow I doubt that either of us will be very collected anywhere in the near future given the painful subject of pretty much everything about my origins having been a lie because James was a complete psycho and just could not get over the fact that he was not the hero of his own story and that his family’s inbreeding left him incapable of fathering a child of his own flesh and blood.” Harry says instead which has the benefit of knocking Snape for another shocking loop.

Unfortunately Snape being Snape takes this as a challenge to over compensate and loom ominously, which leads absolutely nowhere Snape wasn’t scary anymore especially when Harry feels far too ill to give much of a damn.

“Look, mum may not be here but what she left behind will answer your questions better than I ever could.” Harry murmurs into the pillows, sounding just as out of it as Harry currently felt.

“You are not biologically a Potter?” Snape presses anyway, bewildered.

“The Potters took the incest thing to an extreme that proved to be their undoing. James’s parents… I’ll have to show you Fleamont’s journals at a later date, but for now all you need to know is that James was physically unable to produce children, and that mum sure as hell had not wanted to carry _his_ child let alone have him touch her even if he was able to.”

In response Snape scoops Harry’s limp head up into his alarmingly large spindly hands to examine Harry’s face.

“Mum left you something, in her things.” Harry’s voice comes barely above a whisper eyes sliding shut to focus on breathing and not passing out or thinking too closely about Snape feeling so real and-

This spurs Snape to let Harry go.

“I will be back. Be sure to have collected yourself before then, I have a great many questions that require answers.” The man speaks in an ominous tone before leaving the room completely, though the effect is ruined by how much his voice shakes as he says it.

In the man’s wake there is nothing but blessed silence.

Most welcome silence.

Save for the sounds of Snape’s footsteps walking away, then later the loud creek of the old secret door opening from a floor below.

Harry is eventually able to recover enough to get out of bed and take a shower, almost reflexively relaxing back into Harry’s true feminine form as if in fear that the specter of Harry’s deceased former teacher, tormentor, and protector will magic Harry away to Hogwarts without a choice. Since Harry knew full well that the real Snape would never stoop so low with a grown adult Harry’s greatest current concern was… well what if the moonstone toxic shock along with the lifetime of trauma has finally caught up with Harry and now Harry was seeing things.

Snape died in Harry’s arms. This is an irrefutable fact. Another irrefutable fact is that love potions of the strongest strengths and with Harry’s less-than-healthy condition in particular, madness is a constant fear. Artificial obsession is not love, nor is it even infatuation, the more the victim is exposed the more the mind and body react violently against a chemical, emotional, and physical threat, thus Harry is at a greater risk of complications. Even fully healthy grown adults have been known to break even after the danger has past because it isn’t until long after someone feels safe that their brain begins to process and unpacks all of the raw pain that they had not had the time to acknowledge at the time that it had transpired.

So what Harry needed to do was go see the doctor as soon as possible, and possibly let the brain have its moment to vent, but the second things get out of hand Harry will call for emergency services and voluntarily be placed under observation. Harry does not feel at all as if this was an actual hallucinatory experience given Harry has read up quite a bit on the subject from actual peer reviewed medical sources from verified real accounts, but Snape had died, Harry saw it happen, maybe… Harry’s brain just needed to tell even a pretend Snape the truth so that Harry could finally lay the man to rest in a cold, empty sorry-I-couldn’t-save-you-so-that-you-could-be-here-to-learn-the-truth type of way.

Or maybe not. Maybe Snape is actually alive and is going to be wholly unprepared for the sheer amount of sobbing Harry is about to put the man through because everything had been a lie and Harry is currently still a complete mess over it all. Maybe Harry was going to freak the man out and he’ll run away all the way back to Britain and pretend none of this happened because in the end even Severus Snape’s whole world was ruled by the memory of James Potter and… Harry is not… him. It would only be fitting Harry supposes that even someone who hated James would be repulsed that Harry does not fit into James’s shadow anymore.

After all who was Harry Potter without James being the main focus of the core of the Harry Potter identity? The son of a manufactured legend could never stand alone as their own person. Snape bought into that fantasy more than almost anybody else aside from Sirius who often called Harry by the name of James as if Harry was James but with amnesia or… something.

Harry just… does not have the mental capability to decide one way or the other right now. Nor does Harry particularly care about Snape’s impending hissy fit so long as Harry got to keep the independence that Harry has worked so hard to achieve after… everything came crashing down with Ginny.

It’s very strange having what was probably a hallucination or at least a probable _something_ wandering around the house while Harry is very pointedly trying to go against every instinct to keep an eye on Snape by calmly getting ready for bed as if nothing was amiss. If it wasn’t a hallucination…

It is better to assume that it was an hallucination. Otherwise Harry would have to spend the next few hours trying to decide whether to feel amused or embarrassment over the fact that the majority of the house that Harry did not generally use other than to stop by to run over with cleaning charms were without any furniture whatsoever to distract from the really strange wallpaper designs that make everything look as if Harry had plastered the walls with the paper wrappings that came with the fancy little soaps that nobody but Harry used for actual washing up because according to Hermione because they’re shaped like flowers or cherubs or something that makes you feel really weird for dissolving into your hands.

Harry never got cherubs, the soaps in the shape of succulents however were oddly satisfying to watch slowly melt away with each wash and watching someone as smart as Hermione try to make sense of how she was to go about negotiating how to effectively wash her hands while using a decorative leafy soap was funny as hell. The fact that Harry did not even _live_ in a good portion of Harry’s own house long enough to justify filling some rooms with furniture, _that_ was kind of embarrassing.

Harry wasn’t even all that worried about having a wild Snape roaming free and getting into Harry’s things, since Harry had warded hiding places in the master bedroom to keep the man out for the time being.

What Harry was worried about was Snape finding some secret passage or room and hiding out for a few days only to pop up unexpectedly at random intervals.

Provided of course that Snape was not just a hallucination…

Real or not however, there was certainly going to be a tantrum in the making after all of this.

Harry imagines that the real Snape would have been shocked, perhaps even scandalized given that he too seemed to have a habit of worshipping blood purity. Harry braces for an onslaught of yelling and jeering once Snape finishes with whatever he’s doing, calling Harry and mum all sort of things just as Harry’s aunt used to do. For the man to find great offense that mum was not a virtuous Madonna but a human woman who did what she needed to in order to survive in a world that had given her two choices: marry the boy she absolutely hated or die. Sure, they’d all make sad faces if she had died, even make a speech over her death probably. But mostly that speech would have centered around James and how she had been blind and stubborn as a whore to not see his love for her, frame his creepy stalker tendencies as something noble and pure before she was lost to history as just another number in the casualty list. Easily cast aside by her supposed Purebred friends because at the end of the day mum was never… part of the _family_.

Literally.

Which was really gross now that Harry had spent some time away from all of that. At the time, when Harry had been a clueless teenager who had only known the world from the inside of a boot cupboard, everything had seemed a lot more noble because it had been pretty much all Harry had ever been allowed to know, but once Harry had the chance to step away it was all… so very stupid.

They killed people all because they were angry that their cousins weren’t inbred enough to satisfy their incest fetish of living in a world where everyone was a first cousin and it was all kept within the family.

They killed people, _because of sex_ outside of their extended family.

And power, though Harry doubted they would have lasted much longer given how the Ministry had pretty much collapsed and was just running on fumes towards the end of the war and had never recovered.

No, the Death Eaters had just wanted to be _special_. Be the most popular heads of the extended _family_.

And Ginny had wanted to breed with Harry Potter. Not marry out of love, but breed as if Harry were some kind of thoroughbred horse or dog. Use her own children to breed with other famous people most likely. Start the cycle all over again. With Harry’s children. As if they, all of them, would be nothing but livestock or toys to play out her fantasies. More playing pretend dream house like toddlers and children do rather than actually being the adult mother and wife who had to understand the concept that people were not toys.

How heartless.

Harry half wanted to be sick over the side of the bed just thinking about it. Harry just might have to do just that if Snape came barging in like a storm of insular English upper nobility whose male privileges were offended.

Harry did not have the constitution to take that sort of thing anymore.

Snape does eventually walk in on quiet feet after the sun has set. Only his dark warped reflection in the brass base of the lamp and through the reflection in the glass of Harry’s bedside photographs give him away on this moonlit night.

When Harry sits up to face the man there is an audible noise of surprise as Harry turn on the lamp and blindly attempts to fumble for the spectacles. Harry’s vision has improved greatly thanks to a combination of nutrient potions and the paternity potion leaving Harry’s system, though the world is still a little too off focus at times to be without them entirely. The doctors said that it was a coin toss for whether Harry’s eyes would end up needing glasses or not once they finally settled down and stopped trying to imitate James’s own terrible vision. It’s annoying, but Harry wants to be able to at least properly see the impending tirade of offended stuffy privilege so that Harry can properly tell the wizards to piss off because Harry is too damn tired to care anymore.

Yet the hallucination that has just strolled into Harry’s bedroom and has handed over Harry’s spectacles looks more like a complete emotional wreck rather than a raging posh English man from boarding school who had just had his fantasies of a perfect woman destroyed. There are even tear tracks visible on Snape’s face! He is looking at Harry as if Harry has just come out of hospital from a horrifying car accident and yet somehow managed to survive with barely a scratch!

Harry has seen open irritation from Snape when Harry has managed to come back alive after running off to what should have been certain death, but this is the first time Harry has ever seen Snape wear a how-the-bloody-hell-are-you-even-still-alive-do-miracles-actually-exist-or-do-you-have-an-ancestor-who-had-been-part-tardigrade? Holy-mother-of-god-with-what-you-have-been-through-you-should-have-been-dead-a-hundred-times-over!

It is a very strange look to be seeing on Snape’s face.

What Snape says instead is: “You were a witch all along.”

 _‘You are a wizard ‘arry._ ’ Hagrid had said on that fateful day little over a full decade ago, and Harry can’t help but feel it ironic that the declaration of Harry’s true nature had begun from the very start based off of a cruel lie just like everything else Dumbledore had ever done to uphold James’s legacy, only then for the full truth to be realized by time and biology. Like all unsustainable lies they could only keep working for so long until reality catches up.

Which makes Harry wonder why Snape doesn’t look as though he’s freaking out the most over Harry’s gender. Rather it is more raw emotional upset instead of the surprised goldfish look that Hermione had gotten when Harry finally broke the news to her. Which had ended up becoming a very long sleepover where Harry and Hermione debated what Harry’s sexuality should even be called in between Hermione casting even more diagnostic spells and burying herself into Harry’s books on the subject. It had been kind of hilarious.

This is not at all hilarious.

“Harry Potter never existed.” Harry begins in a vulnerable quiet voice because hallucination or no, Harry just… needed for the illusion of Harry Potter to be shattered beyond repair. Maybe the man really was standing in absolute shock before Harry, or maybe Harry’s brain still needed to process everything, either way Harry needed this right to speak on their own behalf for once.

Something Harry had never been allowed to do before.

“The truth is, that you all collectively made Harry Potter up. An imaginary ideal. Not a person. The truth is that Harry Potter had been born as nothing but a prop to boost a spoiled purebred psychopath’s image of himself because he had been impotent and he had cared more about his reputation than my mother and I’s safety. The truth is that my mother, while she had been separated from James, had done her research and she had found that there had been an obscure way for someone to survive the killing curse. The truth is that it had been my mother who had turned Tom Riddle into a smear onto the floor, not me and my baby magic. The truth is that all of those times you all looked at me and had seen James Potter, that was all just in your heads. The truth is that my biological father was a non-British muggle that my mother had fallen in love with, and every time you all had told yourselves that I was acting just like James? That was a lie you were telling yourselves. It had not been a boy who had killed Riddle. There was no validity to the prophecy. All of it, every single moment of it, had been nothing but a figment of your collective imaginations. The truth is that Harry Potter was just a figment of all of your imaginations, constructed out of a lie made by James and repurposed by all of you because in the end myself and my mother did not matter to the lot of you. It was always about James. Whether you hated him or loved him, he was always the one you all tried to get back, he was the Purebred and myself and my mother weren’t anything but outsiders and that was all that mattered.”

The hallucination just stands there, seemingly frozen in shock as Harry sits before him on the bed, tears streaming down Harry’s feminine face. Voice cracking as Harry spoke. Harry suspects that the reason why the hallucination is standing so still is because Harry’s own imagination cannot come up with an idea for how the man would have reacted next.

But then the hallucination moves. Reaches out, hesitates, then when Harry leans forward with Harry’s own hand extended in imitation Snape slowly moves both hands, lightly, barely even touching, up Harry’s arms to curl over shoulders, one of Harry’s arms moves to hook around the man’s waist while the other plucks off the spectacles.

Harry is surprised for ending up sobbing pitifully into Snape’s shoulder, even more surprised at Snape for pulling Harry into an honest to god embrace. Snape rubbing Harry’s back soothingly while Harry crushes an ear to the man’s breathing (breathing! Expanding, contracting, alive!) chest, trying to hear Snape’s heartbeat through the layers of woolen clothing.

Harry doesn’t know why it had happened but they end up curled up in bed together. At first Snape had needed to sit down because he’d been forced to stoop down at a weird angle, but then when Harry reaches back for a pillow to use as a support because Harry’s hip had been feeling pinched under the weight and at the angle Harry was forced to sit on the joint, Snape does a really odd thing and takes the pillow, holds it behind his head, and lays down. Which is a very, very strange thing for such a stand-offish man to do considering the fact that when Snape had seen Harry as a boy he’d been flouncing around acting as if Harry had bathed in fermented grease while being possessed by the spirit of James Potter.

And now Snape was suddenly acting all… comforting. Like, Harry could cling to the man and feel all safe in the knowledge that no matter what Snape would always be there to protect Harry just as he had done for a good chunk of Harry’s whole life.

Harry is tired. Just as a general fact, Harry is always exhausted, so despite Harry’s best intentions the overwhelming feeling of being _safe_ makes Harry fall asleep pretty much instantly.

When Harry wakes hours later it is still dark outside, the room still alight by the bedside lamp, yet Snape is still there, still staring up at the ceiling, still in shock, but somehow looking even more wrecked than he had before.

Harry couldn’t tell whether the man had passed out with his eyes open or if he had stayed awake the whole time. Let alone why he is letting Harry curl up into his side in such an close embrace while also partially returning that embrace by having his arms cradle Harry against the man’s body.

Perhaps this truly was a hallucination.

One where Harry can feel the warmth of the body beneath him, hear the rush of air being drawn in and out like a pair of bellows inside his chest, the beat of the heart, the sounds of liquids and gasses moving around.

The way Snape’s ribs hitch as if suppressing a sob.

There is a moment between them, where Harry meets the man’s gaze and they share a wordless profound sense of mutual grief.

“You still… have your mother’s eyes.” Snape says, voice raw in such a way that made it clear that he’d been weeping silently while Harry had been asleep.

“She had been casting a spell that would protect me since before I had even been born.” Harry confides to the man. “Her journal goes into more detail but… she had found a way to protect me. Her magic still runs through my veins and the color of my eyes is proof of it. She made me immune to the killing curse. She was the one to ground her magic so that she could take him out should he ever be stupid enough to cross her. She is the one who killed him the first time. Her legacy is what had killed him over and over again until it finally took.”

“Her legacy. Lily’s magic and her child.” Snape speaks in reverence.

“Turns out I inherited a lot more from her than just eye color.” Harry’s head turns in more towards Snape’s shoulder at the thought. “She never got the chance to properly meet me. That was part of her plan you know? She had known that eventually I’d grow up to not look like James and he’d have no choice but to let her and I go. She didn’t know that paternity potions were a thing, or the reason why she had gotten so sick late into her pregnancy was because James had fed her something dodgy. She was never allowed to know her own baby girl!”

In very un-Snape-like behavior the man stiffly curls himself around Harry, willingly sharing in Harry’s heartbreak as Harry starts crying all over again.

Must be a hallucination.

A surprisingly heavy one whose arm strength has pinned Harry down against his chest in a nonthreatening but still very firm hold as if Harry weighed nothing at all.

…Or something.

Harry didn’t have the brainpower to think too much about it though. A warm hug is very comforting to be given when one needs a good cry after yet again being reminded of the body count… and all of the unnecessary years of living in a nightmare… all because of one sonovabitch bastard frat boy who just could not take no for an answer.

So yeah, the hug is actually lots better than yelling would have been. Harry didn’t even feel like throwing up anymore. Strangely Snape hugging Harry seemed to be… something Harry hadn’t realized that Harry had actually needed.

Someone actually completely understands with every fiber of his being without there being any hint of immediate denial because they wanted so badly to believe that the Marauders were the good guys.

It’s nice.

 _BING!_ Went Harry’s magical alarm startling Snape into nearly crushing Harry with his arms.

Oh.

Right.

Time to return back to reality.

“I have to go take my potions.” Harry grunts in the man’s hold feeing a dehydration headache beginning to take root.

_BING!_

“…I should also feed you.” Even if it was a hallucination, neither had any dinner last night.


	7. Things Look Different When You Take The Excuse of Destiny Out of Your Dumbass Plan to Save the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Explicit references to traumatic child abuse abound! Snape finds a vibrating dildo, panic attacks, an examination of Harry Potter but taken from a different context because consequences are a bitch. Harry still doesn't know whether or not to face the fact that Snape is alive yet.
> 
> In which Harry, who has now had therapy, been allowed to exist in a safe space away from abusive people, and has had ample time to reflect on the realities of their childhood without being gaslighted at every turn, has the exhausting job of informing Severus that while having a Chosen One Savior ride in to save everyone may have sounded good on paper but the fact that Harry had been a defenseless child with no legal rights and nowhere to run to sort of spoils the fantasy.
> 
> In short: take away the romance of DESTINY and all you've got is a group of dumbass adults being all psychotic and abusive towards some random kid who did not, and does not owe them anything.
> 
> Severus gets an education that NOTHING he had assumed had been what it had seemed. To the eyes of a child they had all looked like raving psychotic lunatics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: This is partly totally the perspective any psychologist with half a brain would conclude if Harry Potter had been real.
> 
> Second: Often people living in abusive situations will attempt to compartmentalize what is happening to them by attempting to mentally rationalize that it is not as bad as it actually is in reality. Sure it may be so bad that it can't be ignored, but the brain goes into survival mode and attempts to put temporary plasters over the parts that can be ignored for the moment so that it can focus more energy on just basic survival. Once survivors of abuse escape the control of their abusers they have a chance to sit down and really reflect on how things had actually been like.
> 
> And yes. Yes, on some level you find that you had always known that the adults were batshit insane. But you told yourself otherwise because you knew that if you resisted you would likely die. They put a man eating dog, soul sucking monsters, giant nope snek, Olympics of death, pink toad of torture, and worshipped a complete nutter as something close to a god, all inside a school filled with vulnerable children who died or got seriously hurt under their care.
> 
> From a child's perspective these people are crazy but you are forced to NOT THINK ABOUT IT until you survive to see adulthood, run away, and finally, when you have run far enough, be allowed to admit without fear of punishment that they were never good people. nice maybe. But not good. As you go on with life while processing past events you even learn a great deal about other cases from other people in similar-but-not-the-exact-same past cases. You even learn that psychology has words to describe things that you hadn't even thought were odd because it had been so normalized that you didn't even think it was weird until you got out and realized that people weren't supposed to treat kids that way. 
> 
> Basically this chapter is more of an establishment of how far Harry has progressed with therapy and processing what had happened from a context where people didn't go "You're HARRY POTTER!" first and forgot everything else. Take away the whole "destiny" thing and what do you get? Something that makes sense? No. No you do not. Put destiny back, does it make sense now to put a child through an adult's war? No, no it does not.
> 
> Being able to put into words exactly how things had looked from the perspective of a child from Harry's background will make the official story unrecognizable because the context is different, but at the same time it is not the wrong interpretation. Perhaps the adults in Harry's life had not meant to be nearly so cruel, and they had not realized they were in the wrong, but that did not stop their actions from speaking louder than their words.
> 
> Just me taking the whole story of Harry Potter and putting the context of the whole plot into a different light.

Very kindly she sets down cold cereal, tea of some form, and applesauce with a sprinkling of frozen huckleberries for him to pick at while she administers a hypodermic to the abdomen which contains a potion that regulates her hormonal balance in order to flush her system of moonstone traces in her blood and the last remnants of that blasted paternity concealing potion.

She had allowed him to briefly look over her multiple medications, yet Severus cannot find the frame of mind to focus. He still has questions, there are things that must be addressed, yet Severus simply cannot find the frame of mind to even know where to begin. Everything has been turned upon its head and Severus is completely lost as to fathom what he must do next. How was he to move forward with the burden of such horrible truths coming to light? He is grateful that she had told him everything so willingly, yet the truth is so maddingly cruel that his mind cannot focus. He is trapped upon what he had seen in her memories, the evidence painting an all too clear portrait of Lily, living in constant fear and betrayal, doing everything she could to survive only to then be thwarted at every turn by a world that seemed to not care about either her nor the safety of her child. Only James Potter’s insipid need to maintain airs that he was some sort of hero and not the villain were catered to by those around them. His selfish wants mattering to others more than Lily’s life. She had no one to run to! Her child paying the price years afterward.

Lily… her child- her daughter…

Severus feels it unfair that he still has a sense of taste, for it would be far more appropriate to have his meal taste of ash on his tongue after the previous day’s continued shocking realizations. The sweet tartness of the berries and the honeyed cold milk flavor of the yogurt in the cereal were far too cheerful in the wake of his grief being revitalized with new cruel twists at every turn. He will not pretend that he had ever approved of the marriage, but he had long-since made his peace with Lily’s decision given how terribly Severus had ended their friendship. As he grew up he was slowly forced to concede that… whilst wallowing in his own anger towards Potter, his parents, life in general… his self-centered grief at being denied his heritage, that he had grossly neglected Lily. There he had been, following the crowed of future Death Eaters like a pathetic fool while still expecting her to continue to ignore his blathering on about how primitive the muggles were, how much lower they were than them for existing, and then when the first war had begun Severus had consciously chosen it for the best to give not one care towards the demise of those muggles he did not personally know. For he had assumed that without the Dark Lord there would be no future for Severus at all to break free from his low-born life as the son of a violent drunk and a witch who turned her back upon what Severus had thought to be a life akin to royalty.

Little wonder she had turned to Potter, Severus practically threw her at him. He had killed her in his stupid carelessness!

He had left her all alone in a world alien and hostile to her. He who had partly helped drag her in with no escape.

He who had been caught up in his own selfish desires for destruction and violence against a world that seemed to be against him in particular. He who had been an over dramatic fool who spent years waxing on and on about his troubles and his pain, had never stopped to consider how it all affected Lily. How, just like Severus, Lily had been just as much of an outsider, how, in actuality, she had also suffered severe bullying and discrimination. How she had been suffering too. Just in a separate, entirely horrific manner.

The _pretty_ muggleborn. The exotic red haired and green eyed outsider. Assessed like one might look at a horse or a dog as nothing more than future breeding stock. Stripped of her very humanity as nothing but a curiosity for some Pureblooded creep to own as part of his “self-image” to present to the world that he “was not like other Purebloods” Oh no, James Potter had wanted to present himself as “special”.

And fuck it, despite Lily’s best attempts to get away the moment she could, to escape-…

Severus had left her all alone to the hands of a _monster_! His stupid teenaged self whinging and bemoaning that she was _pretty_ of course she would fall for someone as handsome as Severus’s greatest enemy, but no. No, Severus had reduced her down to her looks as well by that point. Never asking questions, never checking in to see if she was okay…

She had told Severus, often, of how scared she was, how she did not feel safe going to Hogsmeade. She never went to Hogsmeade, never traveled alone if she could help it, she used to sneak into his bed in the Slytherin dorms just to get away and Severus had thought she to be too pretty to get hurt.

Severus had not listened. Not properly.

He had… thought she had at the _very least_ fallen for Potter willingly, that at the _very least_ she was happy, that Potter loved her and desired to keep her and their son-…

Henry Septimius Evans…

Septimius, after the same Roman emperor that Severus derived his name from. A Prince family tradition, to give their children names of emperors and kings of old.

She had forgiven him. Still loved him as her dearest friend. She had given her child’s _name_ to him.

Lily had made her child Severus’s namesake. As close as she possibly could.

She had forgiven him despite everything…

Severus stares at the young woman across from him as she slowly sips her breakfast which consists of a concoction she had thrown in the muggle blender using mysterious powders and multi-colored frozen cubes from her icebox. She is not wearing her spectacles, apparently without the potion forcing her body to conform to the spitting image of Potter her vision is now allowed to slowly improve as her body rids itself of all of James Potter’s toxic influence, and along with it she looks strikingly more like her mother. Not a perfect mirror image, but from the shape of her face, the way she holds herself, the way her dark hair falls in wild waves and ringlet curls she is without a shadow of a doubt all Lily’s. Her genetics. Her legacy.

James Potter’s cruelty is unfathomable.

Severus does not fully know how he is to even begin processing last night’s cruel revelations, but for the life of himself he cannot look away. Before the mere sight of Lily’s child had caused him nothing but pain, to see that nothing of her save for her eyes had been given a legacy. Almost as if to mock him personally for all the good that James Potter had relentlessly taken away from Severus. An emotion that others vilified him for daring to possess, scolded him for his convictions against the son of his most despised enemy.

How unforgivably awful that all this time James had been mocking Lily for her attempt to get away from him completely.

How he had planned on getting away with such a thing when Lily would have certainly noticed as her child aged…

James Potter did not expect- he had not planned for her to live. That is the only conclusion of how the monster could have possibly have thought he’d get away with this. One way or another James Potter had planned to ensure she would never survive the war.

Lily had no escape.

Last night Severus had wanted to scream, but what use would that be? Yes, he had taken the liberty to close the hidden door and cast muffle charms so that he could express his grief without listening ears hearing his open weeping, but he had not screamed. Watching her journey through her memories as she had pieced together the truth of her origin had pained him as he could not help but imagine how violated she must have felt to discover her body was not her own! How helpless, as both her illness and her changing body ripped away her agency over her life.

Just as how her mother had been trapped.

 _Harry Potter was merely an imagined fiction_ did not even begin to fully articulate the situation.

However, for the first time Severus is not alone in his repulsion at Harry Potter looking like the mirror image of James but with green eyes. Yet… if anything Severus still cannot find solace in the only person who could possibly understand Severus’s anguish… for there remains the fact that Severus had, intentionally, been the core source of a great deal of… grief for her. Severus is now, currently, after everything coming to light, certainly beyond sympathetic to her condition, but the sheer agony she is clearly feeling is so mind boggling that Severus cannot help but be uncomfortably aware of how alone she must truly be to have sought solace in Severus’s arms last night.

Which had surprised him, that she so readily embraced him despite their tumultuous past. Of course Severus had felt… an obligation to oblige her. Not nearly so heartless as to turn her away when she needed a measure comfort from Potter’s most despised enemy after a very upsetting day.

Severus has long ago given up on being a good man, but that did not make him unaware of the present fact that the young woman before him required a level of compassion that until this very moment Severus had been incapable of providing to… the spitting image… of James Potter…

“…”

What does one say to the young woman you had spent the majority of her childhood life loathing on sight due to her resembling your schoolboy tormentor? Oh yes, she had been an absolute terror as a child, but back then Severus had assumed that James Potter’s genetics were at play, the child had seemed to act eerily exactly like him, as if he had been brought back to life through his son.

Yet she is not of James Potter’s bloodline. She did not possess James Potter’s legacy and therefore… how could she have known to act in such ways? Severus knows what he had seen! She had acted more and more like the toerag the longer she had been in school!

…At least it had looked that way… to Severus… who had gone out of his way to terrorize an underaged… child… had gotten into spats with a child… Severus who had easily been fooled by James Potter’s lackluster potion that wore off when she had hit puberty at a late age…

Seemingly to assure him that nothing had been what it had seemed, last night she had given Severus a few precious memories that informed him that all this time she had been meant for Slytherin house but begged the hat not to put her there because she had been repeatedly been informed (as well as Draco bungling their very first meeting in his usual ineloquent fashion) that Slytherins were evil and she had not wanted to be stuck in a dorm with Draco Malfoy and a terrifying glaring old man who had it out for her since the sorting feast.

What child was truly a mirror image of just one parent? Yes, children could be born to eerily resemble one parent but to be an exact perfect copy? Why was this not noticed sooner? Why had Severus not taken note of the oddity? It should have been obvious in hindsight. As Harry Potter she even had the same birthmark on the back of her neck that James had sported in life she had the same voice as well. A perfect copy of James, a synthetic clone.

It really should have been obvious if he had been paying attention.

How much of Severus’s perception had been fooled by James Potter’s cruel trick? Everything came into question now as Severus attempts to imagine Lily’s child and not Potter’s progeny walking into the great hall, taking notes in his classroom. If, for the sake of argument, events had played out differently. If she had been healthy enough to flush the potion from her system, if she had come to school as Henry Evans, if she had never met Draco Malfoy and been sorted into Slytherin, and Severus had been too preoccupied looking for the son of James Potter, would he have even taken notice of her?

Aside from taking note of her unusual eye color for her coloration Severus is beginning to suspect that he would not have. She would have merely gotten lost in a sea of children where it would be doubtful that Severus would even have talked to her very often if at all outside of class or his head of house duties.

More importantly what does one say to the Savior of the whole magical world who was not in fact fated to defeat the Dark Lord but had still managed to defy the very fates themselves? She was not the one the prophecy had foretold would come to their rescue, and yet she had played her part as if she were the Savior and won the day for them all. She had said so the previous night that she had not been the one meant to shoulder the burden, that it had been Lily and her immense power who had dispatched with the Dark Lord the first time, and then Lily’s magic which had guided and protected her child as she set forth to kill every last remnant of the Dark Lord until there was nothing left.

A child who had not been the savior, yet still taking on the role and succeeding beyond even Albus’s predictions. A child who defied her own death and walked back into the world of the living to slay the one who had marked her as an equal by mistake.

His downfall by the hands of the girl who is the child of a muggleborn witch and with not an ounce of Purebred lineage in her veins. A child born of one so powerful that she had given her daughter the ability to defy the deadliest curse known to the world, a child who herself had grown powerful despite all odds from the fates stacked against her that she disintegrated the most feared wizard ever known with nothing but an expelliarmus. She had over the years, multiple times according to some sources, used her wand and low-grade dueling spells to prevent the path of Unforgivable curses from reaching her. She who stepped into the legendary high expectations for a Chosen Savior and exceeded beyond anyone’s wildest predictions.

She who had been a frightened child who had been forced to become a weapon when she was not meant for that fate. She is right. She should have never been put into such a position in the first place.

And she had not been destined to die. That is why she had survived. It simply was not her time. Death let her walk away, refused to take her for she… wasn’t on his list or her hourglass was not empty or-… something. She was never the Chosen One so her fate was entirely her own!

Albus had been wrong, about everything.

…So what had happened with the real Chosen One? The one predicted to take out the Dark Lord? The one whose prophecy had created the chain reaction of events that had led to Severus overhearing and leading the Dark Lord to suspect Lily’s child as being the only possible logical candidate. If it had truly been fate then none of this should have happened! Severus had never heard of a prophecy going unfulfilled. What possible explanation was there for all of this mess?

“Sybill Trelawney must have found a way to fake a prophetic vision.” Severus comments to the witch across from him. His rage building in his chest for yes, that must have been it. All of it starting from nothing but a ruse by someone despicable enough to destroy lives just for the chance to act all _special_ and superior above others. Oh yes, how the bitch gloated over everyone. Claiming she had the power to foresee everyone’s demise. “Lying bint was always obsessed with being the center of attention. She reveled in stirring up fear and panic at every turn. Of course she was not a real seer, she must have taken a shot in the dark and reaped her rewards for the chaos she created unnecessarily.”

An exhausted air seems to settle over her shoulders as she stares pensively at her thermos.

“You know…” She begins giving Severus a piercing side eyed glance. “Dumbledore once told me to my face that Neville would have fit the prophecy perfectly if Riddle had really believed his own bollocks about Purebreds being all superior and shite. In fact, since I was not supposed to live to see the age of eighteen, I found out from Dumbledore’s last remnants that he had intended for the Pureblooded one from the right Gryffindor family, Neville Longbottom, to step forward as his secret child-soldier weapon and kill Riddle and end the war so that he could step into the shoes that Dumbledore had wanted me to vacate due to the fact that I was- ah… tainted. Not **_pure_** enough you could say. I was merely the distraction so that Neville could step in and save a horde of grown adults from a different horde of grown adults who apparently needed a child as pacifistic and as pure in more ways than just not housing a horcrux in his skull as Neville to come along and do the grim job of murder for the sake of breaking the spirit of the enemy.”

Severus feels suddenly cold all over as he pales at the realization, of the other boy he had despised for if the Dark Lord had gone after him then Lily would have lived, blood rushing away from his face and limbs so quickly he does not know whether to faint or to struggle to keep consciousness in order to prevent his meal from crawling it’s way back up his throat.

Years of exploding and melting cauldrons and that damn toad rocketing itself at Severus’s head at unexpected moments flash before Severus’s eyes.

The young woman continues while she passively watches Severus struggle to draw in breath past his sudden inability to feel as if he is getting enough oxygen despite his lungs inhaling to their full capacity.

“Of course the irony of the non-Pureblood needing to suffer a horrible childhood in a cupboard under the stairs, spend school constantly fearing for my life, only to die a horrific painful death so that the still-a-child Purebred alternate from the right breeding could come out as the ultimate hero to all of us lowly muggleborns, squibs, and half-bloods was… supposedly completely lost on the old fool. Though given the fact that he had very pointedly admitted to my face at age eleven that he knew full well that it was _my mother_ who had done Riddle in, and I had best be a good little boy because he had all of the power and I did not, I cannot help but feel that the irony was not as lost on him as Dumbledore would like to pretend it had been. It was Dumbledore who partially arranged for me to go on a lot of those dangerous adventures. The trap with Fluffy, the encounter in the woods with the unicorn killer, Lockhart, not moving me to a safer location when Sirius infiltrated the castle, not getting rid of the dementors even when they almost killed me in front of a huge crowd as well as on the train going to Hogwarts, giving Hermione a time-turner, the tournament, Umbridge, my aunt, letting me take the brunt of the Ministry’s smear campaign by encouraging me to shout when I should have kept quiet, even going as far as to spirit me off on a fieldtrip with him, that _you_ were never told about, that almost ended up with the both of us getting killed if not for the fact that I had still managed to fish us both out and get away, his plans for me to die in some way at the right time seemed to pop up every year. Suspiciously always after I had completed my exams. Once you step back to ask if most normal children would have survived year after year of all of that. Why on Earth would the great Albus Dumbledore think that I as a child could possibly have survived all of it on top of the trouble that I managed to find for myself outside of his control? Little wonder he was forced to reveal his true intentions to you, I must have been quite the thorn in his plans to have me offed quietly where none would suspect to blame him. I inconveniently refused to die when he wanted it.”

Severus can hear his heartbeat pound in his ears.

Could Albus have truly been that cruel? That… blind? Longbottom-… they would have all been slaughtered if it had been Longbottom!

Yes, it is horrifying that she had been the one to take on the Savior’s role and win them the war as a small child but the difference with her is that she had been impossible to kill! She had succeeded! Longbottom-

Oh sweet Merlin.

After it becomes clear that Severus does not have enough air to breathe she gives him the same pained look reminiscent to the one Lily always gave him when Severus used to talk about his father and wordlessly, wandlessly, summoned up a small store-bought packaged bottle and some sort of boxy muggle machine with a rubber mask attached to a tube.

“This is a mild calming potion if that’s not enough then follow the directions to use this device which will pump out oxygen for you to breathe- oh!” She startles when he swipes the mask from her grasp and presses it firmly to his face, the bridge of his nose feels uncomfortable but the seal around airways are sufficient for when she kindly turns the device on for him so that cold, muggle hospital-smelling air begins to flow into Severus’s starved lungs.

“I’m going to have to go out to run some errands, feel free to stay behind and snoop to your heart’s content since you already know my one and only major secret. I’ll be down after a quick wash to give you a spare key.” She tells him softly, getting up and leaving with her smoothie thermos in hand. Leaving Severus alone with his meal to collect himself in relative privacy.

Thank goodness she did not force him to inhale the fumes of smelling salts. Oxygen is proving to be much kinder to his system. Ingenious device really, she must suffer episodes of upset quite frequently for her to know that this was the method to treat Severus’s own distress.

For the duration of her departure Severus attempts to clear his mind, which is more difficult than usual given the topic of conversation, yet slowly through practiced exorcise Severus is able to center himself enough to turn off the machine and focus back onto gradually consuming his meal. Waiting for his gracious host to finish her ablutions for the morning.

The smoothie thermos remains within her grasp when she returns freshly washed and dressed a quarter of an hour later, with a small antique key on a chain held in her grasp for Severus to use in order to access-

Why was she so readily gifting Severus direct access into her home?

“You can activate the portkey by saying _Lotus Foyer_ or _Lotus Hot Garden_. Don’t ask why the activation words are as such, the last Potters to have lived here spelled the key.” She continues after he has taken the portkey and places it around his neck so he could take her up on her offer whenever he felt inclined to do so.

He has an investigation to run, he will likely require to visit quite often.

“Lonely enough that even the presence of your most hated former teacher would be welcome?” Severus asks.

“Actually… there is quite a bit around here that requires your particular skillset. Could you be so kind as to please poke around for any other secret rooms, cubbies, or the like? The Potters had been the sort of eccentric rich folk who had gotten into this Victorian movement of morbid fascination which involved collecting dead things, attending mummy unwrapping parties, buying up artifacts stolen from native cultures all over the British Empire… collecting rare tomes on the Dark Arts and all things occult. I am willing to have it written down for official records that you may keep whatever books on the dark arts that you desire and have open access to all of the potions stuff I inherited, not that I would have restricted you in the first place, but you know… if you ever need somewhere to do research or whatever, up until James had killed the tradition the whole Potter family were big wigs in potions going as far back as Linfred the founding ancestor. Every single Potter family house has a potions lab. James would be spinning in his grave if I made a legalized written something-or-other to have you… do what you do best and he could never properly master himself… and you have obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to come all this way of course. It would only be proper to compensate your time.”

Goodness, that is quite the alluring proposition! Severus casts his mind over what little he knew of the Potter family, potions were always an easy sore point to mock James with seeing as how it had been clear to even the most idiotic in their class that Horace Slughorn only gave the prick good grades because of who James’s father was. All potions that James attempted were flops- as is evidenced by Harriet’s changed appearance- yet Severus had heard a great deal of how surprised the potions guild had been that James did not continue the Potter family illustrious reputation of being a family of natural born talent. His ancestors had written many prominent research journals and developed many of the potions that Severus had taught children how to brew.

Given their wealth the Potter family personal collection is a tempting offer.

Had she always been so generous? Severus is not certain.

Perhaps… yes, she has been, the twin trouble makers and their joke shop is example enough. It must also help a great deal that she would desire even a small taste of vengeance against James Potter even if he had never lived long enough to see justice brought down upon his head.

If it were not for James then Lily would still be alive.

Truly her offer is only logical, it shall benefit them both surely.

“I am surprised that a family with such reputation would possess anything relating to the Dark Arts.” Severus comments lightly as his mind reels between Longbottom and the hint that somewhere on the premises is a potions lab.

“So was I to be honest. Yet there it was. Books so dark they’re now practically illegal to own.”

“I assume this would be why you are graciously gifting them to me.” Severus observed.

“Please take them away.” She confirms with a heavy sigh.

“Then I shall appraise their value to me.”

“I realize that you’ll be too upset to handle heavy foods, but please try to get something into your stomach in a few hours from now. If you want I’ll provide dinner. Just tell me what you want.” She offers, quickly rinsing out the thermos in the sink. Where was the elf? “I already have a roast in the slow cooker that needs to be eaten soon, but I’ll leave out a packet of miso soup if it’s too heavy, all you have to do is put the contents into a bowel, boil a kettle of water, and pour. Instant hot soup.”

“I assure you that whatever you have prepared I shall be composed enough by this evening to consume whatever has been chosen for the menu.” Provided of course that the elf, that has yet to show it’s cowardly face, did not bungle even this simplest of tasks. “No need to change the running of your household on my account.”

“…Okay then. You can graze on what was supposed to be last night’s dinner and this evening we’ll have Yorkshire pudding with salad and sandwiches.”

“Gratifying to know.”

“Right. See you later.”

After she leaves Severus ceases acting as if all is well and crumples into his chair. His mental shields slowly dissolving away as his grief and the fearful revelations bubble over until he weeps pathetically into his cold cereal. Eventually he is forced to turn the muggle device back on for he is keenly aware that he will fall into absolute hysterics if he does not find a method to calm himself before she returns.

Most of his energy over the course of the next few hours is devoted to addressing his anguish whilst he slowly chokes down the very lovely breakfast she had prepared for him. He is very grateful that the yogurt helps it all slide down because he has not eaten anything since yesterday morning and despite his esophagus feeling as if it has closed up he is so, very hungry.

It is his bladder that forces him to move from the table to trudge back up the servant’s staircase, down a hallway, and up one more flight of stairs to reach the second loo he has come across thus far, but unfortunately due to his frantic attempt to search for her neglectful elf he can’t quite recall the path he had taken in the maze of barren rooms and long hallways to rediscover the loo that is not located in her bedroom.

Where _was_ all of the furniture anyway? She had taken the trouble of installing a toilet with a heated seat and a bidet (which had been a surprise he has mixed feelings about) yet a majority of the rooms are left barren save for one reading chair, or a chase lounge. The master bathroom at the very least has a certain air of an attempt to decorate the white space with plants.

Whilst refilling the ceramic water spikes to give Severus something constructive to do, he wonders what this will mean for magical Britain. She clearly cannot return as Harry Potter, yet she had been the only person that all of Britain and Ireland would unite behind as one cohesive magical world. To give her credit she had done her civic duty by utilizing her fame to the best effect in order to ensure a set path for the magical world to recover from the war and go back to how things were supposed to be. She had been so effective, perhaps even by accident, that it was not until her extended absence post-dissolving her relationship with Ginevra that it began to become apparent just how crucial she had been to the fragile stability after the war. It had almost seemed as though large portions of the magical world broke away from London only days after it became apparent that Harry Potter had left the country and was not coming back. As if the law’s inability to protect Harry Potter from a she-demon and a would-be assassin had been the proof that returning the world to how it should be was no longer possible.

They had all taken for granted the power of Harry Potter’s fame, Severus most of all had been skeptical that the presence of a gangly awkward teenager would be so critical for stability and yet the absence of the Savior immediately post-break-up from Ginevra had proven to be just the very beginning of how the world seemed to just dissolve into disjointed factions along outdated muggle borders. The longer Kingsley had been unable to present the Savior to the masses at Ministry balls and to admit the Chosen One into the Aurar program the more talk sprouted up around Harry Potter’s fragile health which prompted fears that they could not rely upon a trusted hero to come to their rescue should another threat like the Dark Lord rise to power.

Ginevra, naturally, given both her gender and general bad behavior, was getting the majority of the blame for the current crisis from all of the disjointed factions. Albeit given the scarce amount of concrete information given towards the nature of their Savior’s disappearance most of it is merely conjecture.

Now Severus has to conceive of a way to break the news gently to Minerva that Harry Potter cannot ever return. That she shall not ever see her little lion ever again.

That the spitting image of James Potter was not but a lie hoisted upon a captive mother and fetus by a narcissistic evil son of a-.

No. Minerva shan’t likely be willing to listen to such facts even if Severus were to drag Lily’s sickly daughter back as living evidence. It would be a moot point to attempt to gain vengeance for Lily as well as for her daughter by such a fruitless effort. Harry Potter simply never existed, and if Severus were to point out that Longbottom had been the true intended chosen one they would all surely be doomed for both Kingsley and Minerva would put the simpering little fool forward as their needed celebrity and all would swiftly go to shit. Lily’s child at the very least knew what she had been doing with almost natural skill, Longbottom might wind up inciting another war.

Like always Severus was going to have to find a suitable lie, or at the very least a means to ease the truth to Minerva while he spent most of his extended time in Canada ensuring that Lily’s beloved legacy did not perish while rattling about on her lonesome inside the maze of hallways and secret rooms found inside of a Victorian mansion that was apparently designed by a pair of mentally disturbed individuals.

Severus gives his face and neck a quick shave with the careful use of spells before half-heartedly rummaging through her bathroom cabinets. She had given him permission after all. He distinctly recalls that she had told him to snoop as much as he pleased. Which had been a strange offer, however he was not going to question her reasoning for it gives him open permission, for the moment, to poke around as much as is needed in order to piece together the mystery of what else had transpired to her immediately after the war.

There he finds the expected feminine hygiene products along with a few tubes of different colored lip stick, tinted lip balms, one stick of foundation, oddly very little make-up for a woman. Her medications, of course, which are neatly arranged and clearly labeled for what days and what times during the day that they are needed, some bottles of perfumes to which all are quite lovely. Severus takes the liberty of using just a little of the skin moisturizer whose label identifies tobacco, bourbon, and cedarwood as being the key scent mixture.

In the linen closet he finds a store of basic essentials such as toothpaste and the like in case she runs out, some scented candles, a-

It takes a moment for Severus to place the intended use of the strange, colorful rubber sculpture with it’s knobs and bulbs and artistic curving decorative bits that make it look almost like an abstract sea serpent. Stamped to the bottom of the base is a series of what look to be suggested incantations.

“Vibrex?” Severus mutters in confusion only to drop the sculpture soon after when it began to vibrate in his hands.

Oh.

“Nox. Stop. Cease! Uh…”

Red. Red had been the keyword to make it stop. To which once it had been achieved Severus carefully placed it back where he had found it and leaves the room.

“…”

Perhaps, he begins to suspect, she had told him that he was welcome to snoop due to the fact that she knew he would deeply regret poking his nose too closely into more… sensitive elements of her personal effects.

What he will eventually need to do is locate that memory storage box of her’s. From what he had been capable of seeing from his vantage point had been that she has quite a few memories stored away that would answer all of his lingering questions. The reasons as to why will have to be asked once she retur-

…And the wooden box under the bed is filled with even more objects of a private delicate nature that will now haunt him until the end of his days. Good to know.

Knowing her sense of humor she’s probably hidden the bloody memory storage box at the bottom of her lingerie. Thinking it will be oh so funny to force him to look through there like some pathetic voyeur.

Granted it was more likely that she hoped he would be far too deterred by the sensitive nature of her intimates to dare transgress any further. Which would explain why she had been so oddly… generous in giving him express permission to search her personal effects.

To which, if that had been her intention, she has been successful. Severus simply does not desire to expose himself to further torture. He does not require details of her… private affairs.

Especially if one of those despicable ugly men had-…

He leaves the room. Pacing up and down the hall in order to calm himself.

It is a priority for him to suss out just how much trouble she has found herself abandoned into with her resorting for one reason or another into… that sort of profession. He still has a great many questions such as how Ginevra had managed to get her mitts on so much money she did not have, what became of Granger, how her medical troubles relate to the reported troubles with memory which was likely induced by moonstone poisoning…

What on Earth possessed her to shack up with such depraved perverse-

Distantly Severus can hear the sound of someone moving about in the house.

She has returned!

Racing down to the front foyer he does not find her, however he does stop for several moments to stare down at the top of the box Harriet had brought to their rendezvous. Where there was once, he distinctly recalls, a magnifier there now rests a muggle cellular device.

Upon closer inspection- for Severus still had a job to do and thus had wanted to try to figure out how to find a list of numbers that he had heard these devices could hold in their memory- it turns out the device is not in fact a mobile, but rather a sinister contraption designed to cause a potential attacker a shock of pain.

Yet it is not a wand. Which is an elegant instrument that is far more efficient in self-defense.

 _What happened_ to her wands?

Severus leaves the device and proceeds to search for Lily’s child.

Due to his earlier distress during the morning it takes him until the afternoon for him to realize the date and that there is a possibility that Pott- Evan-…

Shite what is the proper name that he now must use whenever he referred to her? Not Potter, that is for certain, Evans harkened… imagery that is a little too close to her mother for Severus to deal with at the present moment, yet he shall not call her Henrika either, for last night she had referred to herself by something else…

Harriet! That’s right! She had called herself-

…Well that is certainly a bit on the nose, still better than Henrika but at least Henrika does have the benefit of making a nod towards the name Lily had chosen for her only child…

A legal name to honor her mother and a name to refer to herself that harkens back to the only name she had known to refer to herself by for her entire life. Clearly a compromise of sorts.

The most pressing concern however is the date and whether or not she had been bearing herself for a room full of gawkers to see! He had no chance to stop her and the fact that he had been incapable of at least insisting she stay home for the day is inexcusable, for it is his job to protect her. That has not changed, even if he cannot complete his original mission for obvious reasons, he will do what he can to ensure that Harriet is provided safety and whatever measures Severus can take to ensure she gets compensation for her illness.

…And to at the very least give the Order a villain to blame for the inability of the Harry Potter returning to prevent the fracturing of the magical world. Mainly Severus’s focus must remain on the health and safety of Lily’s child, but at the very least Severus will be able to provide them with some heavily censored explanations as to why Harry Potter can never return.

For the moment… When Severus confronts her…

“…”

What precisely is he going to say to her? A man can’t simply demand a fully adult woman should not whore herself out anymore. Severus does not even know full what is going on, is she selling her body? Does she merely have horrendous taste in men? Apparently any university student can be a nude model and the schools will pay them for exposing themselves!

What can Severus, a man, and a man who has not exactly made a favorable impression of himself for the majority of Harriet’s life, say to her?

It is different now! In the guise of a boy Severus could confront any lad about his bad decisions for Severus had a great deal of experience giving young men such talks. Teenaged boys Severus had some obvious common ground with.

For Severus’s female students all that was required of him was to brew pain potion, act as a big scary authority figure to get the boys to leave them alone, and tell them that they were allowed to say no and hex the bloody fool into a wall if the lad got too ungentlemanly. As a man it is not Severus’s place to dictate what they should do unless if they aimed to commit self-harm or harm others, for Severus is fully aware of just how much he did not know, really, truly, he did not know womanly problems. As a man he could not even try to give advice without it being bad advice for he does not possess the plumbing to understand a witch’s motivations.

In Harriet’s case Severus would have to try. Despite Severus being even more out of his depth than with any other witch. He and Harriet do have common ground… but they also share a great deal too much bad history.

He need to try.

Severus slows down once he reaches the kitchen. Procrastinating. There is something in the oven that the elf must have just prepared before hiding away at the sight of Severus, there are food items under stasis charms and in sealed containers laid out neatly on the floating island counter.

Severus plucks one of the cherry tomatoes off the vine of the large fancy indoor muggle plant growing device and chews it pensively as he slowly makes his way to the open door on the far side of the room where he can hear Harriet moving around occasionally talking to herself.

He steps into what is perhaps one of the most beautiful potions laboratories he has seen outside of Malfoy Manor. Mainly barren, due to it clearly being made for more than one brewer’s use, perhaps even to train about ten or so apprentices, but oh so lovely aesthetically. Brightly illuminated with natural light coming in from frosted windows along walls and a ceiling domed skylight, standing shelves fitted around the twelve marble columns supporting the structures holding up the ceiling. Gleaming cauldrons, what few of them there are, line their one shelf proudly, the labeled apothecary drawers filled with fragrant dried ingredients, one cabinet half filled with jars. To his left there is a large staircase leading up to a landing with a wall of books, and forks off into two more stairways, the one to the right leading up to what was presumably a balcony, and the other…

Severus ascends the left forking stairway so he may take a curious peek, which soon reveals that Harriet possesses what must be the Potter family personal library, the right forking stairway leads up to a covered hallway lined with windows on one side which indicates that it used to be a balcony which opens out into the aviary where no less than five snowy owls eye him curiously.

Once Severus returns to the main landing he considers the space before him.

Not an inch of damp or moss growing on the walls as had been a frequent issue back in Hogwarts… no cracked stonework crumbling down from overhead… no teenagers trying to break into the storeroom for a snog…

Severus finds himself instantly besotted. Saddened that such an elegantly designed space is clearly not being utilized to its fullest potential, however if he managed to get his way that shall not be a problem for much longer, Severus was going to ensure Harriet provided the promised legal documentation to allow him the free range access to the Potter family laboratories that she had promised him this morning. She need not fret about paying him in old dark arts tomes, Severus can think of plenty of ways he will make James Potter spin in his grave. Goodness!

The son of a bitch had all of this here and yet he chose to trap Lily and her child inside of a dingy _cottage_ directly in the path of danger.

Oh Severus is going to _indeed_ do what he did best!

A sneeze catches Severus’s attention.

Below, nestled in a cozy corner hidden to the right side of the main staircase is Lily’s child, grumbling as she washes her hands and replaces the mask she had been wearing with a fresh one before she returns to her task at her work table where a cauldron is bubbling with a bright candy clear orange liquid.

From his vantage point perched high up in the staircase leading to the observatory Severus pulls out his omnioculars Severus settles in to watch the peculiar phenomena of her brewing.

To his absolute shock she does not appear to be horrible at it.

XXX

Well.

That was awkward.

Harry knew- sensed- Snape had been trying to piece together why the prophecy as Dumbledore had vehemently promoted no longer made any sense once it became clear that Harry was not the Chosen One at all. Yet the panic attack was unexpected, Harry knew that Snape would be upset over the whole Neville thing but not to the point of having a full-blown panic attack over it.

He had been fine with Harry being the Savior as a child, what difference did any other child being forced into the Savior role make?

…Maybe Harry should ask him when they came back home. Finally get an answer as to why it had to be Harry. Why it always had to be Harry when the thought of any other underaged child being put into the role that Harry had been forced into would be inconceivable.

Harry doubted that Snape could actually answer this in any way that did not sound completely barmy, but given his reaction to the fact that Neville is his country’s true Chosen One who was supposed to be fated to save all of their sorry hides it just might be worth it to see the realization cross the man’s face that they almost all died because they put a teenager in charge of winning a war.

Hell if it really was Snape in Harry’s kitchen the man might be doing just that at this very moment while he was snooping through-

Shite! Harry had left… _something_ of a delicate nature in plain view in the master bathroom linen closet! Of course there are many products that attend to the needs of a woman’s body that Snape would not find at all surprising-… well it is probable that Snape is just a figment of Harry’s guilt, yet even so there is a difference between period products and private things used for fun when alone.

Harry casts a glance towards the area of Harry’s coat breast pocket which still contains the memory box, at the very least Harry has decided to play it safe and hide it at the bank security vault while Snape is around.

…Maybe going back home right away wasn’t such a-

No.

No Harry refuses to let this be the thing that drives Harry into insanity. This life Harry has built is too precious not to confront head on, no matter what real-or-imagined Snape tried to do to make Harry cry.

Yes, Harry considers as the life drawing class wraps up, Snape does seem to be on his best behavior, and Harry does want to have the man around to just… apologize for all the awfulness the man had to endure for his whole life, but that does not mean that Harry shouldn’t put their foot down and refuse to budge when Snape inevitably throws one of his tantrums. Harry is an adult, Harry will treat Snape with the kindness and respect the man had been denied when he’d been alive, but Harry cannot let some uptight prim and proper wizard who liked to pretend it was still the Victorian era be so frightening.

If Snape sees something that shocks his delicate sensibilities it’s no skin off Harry’s nose. Welcome to the twenty-first century miserable sod!

Harry’s errand at the bank takes a little bit of time for Harry needs help drawing up a suitable legal form that will allow Snape to be lent or given permission to use without fear of being kicked out unless he does something horrible. _Consultant_ is the legal term Harry decides to settle on.

If Snape is just a figment then Harry was really going to be embarrassed.

Popping in directly into the mudroom by the greenhouse Harry is thankful that Snape seems to be nowhere in sight. By the look of the lab and the library which have both remained completely undisturbed he’s clearly not found them yet. The house may look big, it does have hidden rooms that make living there a little hazardous unless the “get out here” levers are clearly marked, but aside from the parts of it that were designed for lab and stargazing research, it was a house designed less for family living and more for having big rooms with nothing to put in them because you did not ever use them. Lots of space but very few actually livable rooms. Teddy’s bedroom for when he and Andromeda stayed over is so big that Harry can’t help but wonder what the hell the Potters had put in there besides the necessary bed, wardrobe, and desk. Teddy’s room looks more like a flat than one of the five bedrooms advertised in the house description! Even he has started talking about just moving him to the little room behind the bookcase because all of that space spooks him.

What were all of these rooms even for? Is a question that not even Andromeda can figure out other than it was well known in Purebred circles that the Potters kept trying for more than one child at a time. Which, given the size of the rooms either meant that they had wanted everyone to live like in some dormitory with beds while the male Potter heir kept remarrying because he’d kill his wives by how often they gave birth, or more likely each child was supposed to be given their own little “apartment” or their “chambers.

Sad that once they decided they were Purebreds the Potters never were able to have too many children at a time.

Of course now they all knew that inbreeding tends to result in less and less children as time moves on. The Potter genealogy makes Harry’s head ache honestly. They all shared the same grandparents, and uncles, and first cousins.

Snape… maybe the vision vanished. Not much to get lost in, as long as you steered clear of the secret rooms. Most of the space is empty. Maybe Snape’s whole purpose of being there was to give Harry’s mind a little bit of closure by pretending what it would have been like if Harry had been able to tell Snape the truth. If Harry had been allowed to grieve with the one person who had been there who could understand.

…Or maybe the man was lurking around between the walls and would pop out at a random moment. A house with secret rooms and no one trying to kill him to a spy must be like the coolest place ever.

Harry warily gets dinner started, making note that they were going to have slow cooked roast sandwiches for Snape has not apparently eaten anything since breakfast, and while the pudding is in the oven Harry ducks into the lab to quickly prepare another batch of sundrop serum to help rid Harry’s body of the moonstone bits still present in Harry’s bloodstream. Thankfully unlike the badly brewed illegal Amortentia that Ginny fed to Harry at every opportunity the sundrop can be ready in half an hour, is easy to brew, and easier to pronounce. It glows a little and when taken with food Harry just gets a little sleepy rather than dizzy.

Harry thinks that Snape might have a few things to say about Harry’s PPE with the lab coat, gloves, the mask, goggles, and the cloth hair bonnet. Not completely certain what those things will be but Snape is the sort of man who will make _a_ comment about it.

After Harry finished the potion, and turns to retrieve the cleaned dose bottles from the autoclave (because Harry went to school to learn how to brew responsibly given that Poppy says that her discreet potions guy- Draco Malfoy held at wand point while he did all of the analyzing- said that Ginny’s potion was triply deadly because it was contaminated in some way and Harry wanted to avoid putting any more harmful things into this body) a voice from above causes Harry to startle out of their skin.

“May I-“

“ _YEEEEEK_!”

“…May I take a sample to review the end quality?” Snape repeats after giving Harry a moment to stop clutching their chest.

“Only if you promise to not startle me when I’m carrying something. …And also if you promise not to startle me when I have something sharp that I might throw on instinct. I really don’t want to drag you to the hospital because I’ve gotten too used to stabbing first and making apologies later during the war.” Harry replies in a rush, horrible visions flashing before Harry’s eyes of what might have happened if Harry had a wand in hand.

“You certainly appear to be driven into a state far easier in recent days than you ever had before.” Snape observes, making his way down.

“That’s one of the reasons why I take medication now. The chemicals that kept me from doing that my body no longer produces on its own.” Harry tells the man with a straight face.

At this Snape gives Harry a worried look that hints that he might be trying to assess just how ill Harry is by visual appearance alone.

“You saw how I had to stab myself with a needle. I can assure you, nothing works anymore without a whole lotta help.”

“Noted.” Says Snape, now surveying the lab with a shrewd eye. “I see that the Potters had spared no expense such a shame that their dedication to leave behind such an inheritance to ensure that the future generations would be able to benefit from having such privilege, and yet their line had died with an absolute fool who never appreciated what he already had.”

“The legal papers we talked about this morning are in my letterman, we will talk out anything else you might need or want over dinner.” Harry gets directly to the point, taking the rack of bottles out of the autoclave and proceeding to set it down by the cauldron.

“May I?” Snape requests as he walks over, and because Harry is not idiotic enough to snub an expert eye from an actual Potions Master, Harry steps back and lets the man review the potion’s directions for brewing, assess the potion’s quality, and then watch as the man fills and seals the bottles with a swish of his wand.

“Thank you. Be right back.” Harry says moving the rack of bottles over to the other side of the room where the goblins have kindly set up a stasis cabinet that looks like a muggle refrigerator, but comes with a special screen on the outside door where Harry can keep track of how much medication is still available in the stores for the next month.

The look on Snape’s face at the sight of the cabinet is understandable given what part of the world the man comes from, but also disturbing enough that Harry begins to wonder if maybe Snape should be allowed a moment alone in the room.

“I’ll show you how it works later. For now let’s-… sir?” Snape had spotted the user manual Harry always keeps on a string beside the cabinet on a string after using a hole punch to make sure it never got lost when Harry needed it, and he started flipping through it.

“I’m surprised you hadn’t gotten to the autoclave first.” Harry admits mostly to the air. “I’ll be out doing clean up, be sure to come out when dinner is ready.”

Strangely Snape follows Harry back to the work space. His attention turns back to the sample vial in his hands, while Harry leads everything into the sink and takes off the PPE. Washing their hands just to be extra safe.

“You never showed an interest nor any talent in potions while in school.” Snape says in pure unfiltered confoundedness as he holds the sample vial up for inspection.

 _Because you never gave me a chance._ Harry thinks, it dances on the tip of Harry’s tongue just begging to be shot out like a verbal slap.

But no. Harry has had similar conversations with Snape in the past that had never gone well because the man had been lost in his own grief where he could not escape the pain of his tragic past. Harry had spent a long time after the war trying to come to terms with the fact that Harry would never be able to be seen in Snape’s eyes as anything other than James Potter with Lily Evans’s eyes. Harry had tortured themself over imaginary conversations in the middle of the night that only had ended in tears because Snape would never accept that he had been the adult and he had bullied a child who had done nothing to him.

So instead of turning the blame directly on Snape, Harry knew, from experience in dealing with the aunt and all of the therapy that Harry has had and still has to undergo twice a month, that Harry has to frame things from a different perspective. Make it sound as if it weren’t Snape’s fault while at the same time pointing the man in the right direction.

Most importantly of all Harry could not lie… merely stretch the truth.

Dr. Rachet probably never thought that Harry would be doing this outside of a exposure therapy session. Maybe making it sound as if it hadn’t all been Snape’s fault was a bad idea, but Harry wanted the man to actually listen so deflecting onto a different, although related, issue was just going to have to do.

Harry just wanted the man, real or not, to understand that it was not a privilege to be saint Potter. It had been a curse and child abuse all the way to the rotten core.

Also if Harry had to hear one more remark about saint Potter having it so easy then Harry just might injure something trying to physically kick Snape in the balls.

“…In truth I have always had an interest in potions but there is a reason… several… very convoluted reasons why I had chosen not to attempt to do my best in your class. You know those memories I gave you about how I was never healthy and my yearly diet had been rather extreme? Well… the fact of the matter is that… it played huge role in why I was such a brat to you and I know that may sound very confusing but it is linked and it is relevant.”

Snape immediately gives Harry his full attention. “How so? I was hardly the one to starve you or any child under my care. As far as I am aware only Petunia had dared attempt to murder you in such a fashion.” The man states as if hurt by the possible accusation.

Well at least he’s listening.

“Empathetic mimicry for the sake of self-preservation is the official clinical term, or E.M.S.P. We, of the victims of paternal potions club, just call it basic survival. It is where a paternally concealed child learns from an early age that if they act within the frame of expectations that the adults in their life set out for them then they will not be punished for not acting in the manner that our adult overlords who control the food and the water and the shelter, want us to act. My aunt was an extreme example to which nothing I did would ever appease her. …However the very first day I spent in your world I was expressly told that Slytherins killed my family and were the reason why I was sent to live in an abusive home, that I was expected to conform to male wizardry ideals, and that I was to emulate James Potter as much as humanly possible. For unlike me he was a man of acceptable Purebred society, and that all of the wizardry adults in my life who had control over my food source, my protection, education, and shelter, would rather like to have their James Potter back even if they were forced to settle for a pale mixed-breed imitation instead.”

“…Are you implying that you were told that you had to act like James Potter in order be allowed to… eat?” Snape asks sounding dubious.

“Yes. Explicitly and repeatedly it was made clear that I was supposed to emulate the imaginary ideal that people had of him. Hagrid nattered nonstop about my father on my very first day, The crowded pup he showed me off in all said I looked like him and therefore it was as if he had never died, McGonagall was always comparing me to him and was more willing to listen to me when bad things happened when I was able to remind her of him, the other teachers talked about how he conducted himself in their classes and therefore how I was supposed to act in their class, most of Gryffindor tower was almost like a memorial to him, as was the quidditch locker room which served as a reminder that I, an orphan without family connections, must always adhere to the role given to me to avoid the fate of all of the other war orphans cast out because they didn’t have any wizards to take them in, the people who were in charge of the government always made it a point to send out long mentions of him and how people knew him in the papers which were given to me by a teacher to make certain I never forgot my purpose, Purebloods were often only nice to me because I had the Potter name, Sirius only ever paid any attention to me when I acted like James so that he could pretend that he was talking to James from beyond the grave- in fact many adults did that and it… was really uncomfortable. Often the only genuine affection I received from most adults in my life was because I had done something they deemed that James would have done or would have wanted me to do. The rest of the time I was either a weapon or a political pawn. Every single day I spent in Hogwarts there would always be an adult there to mention James Potter in order to remind me of the conditions for their favorability. Never once was I allowed to be just Harry, nor was I ever referred by them as just Harry, it was always, Harry Potter, son and reincarnation of their beloved James. Even Ginny only wanted me because I looked like him, once the potion started to wear off when I finally hit puberty I suddenly became the ugly brown abomination that she was staying with only because she pitied me. I started having to beg off invitations to important Ministry business that Kingsley needed Harry Potter’s fame to help him rebuild the government with, because the more time passed the more and more people would come up to me tearfully asking when I would even return to my healthy pale skinned look because in my ill state I didn’t look like their James at all! _Witch’s Weekly_ wrote half a dozen articles where they compared my most recent picture to one of James and tried to gauge the state of my health by comparing me to what I was supposed to look like. Always finding me lacking for I did not match the Purebred they had all wanted to have survived instead of the mixed-breed impure ilk.”

At this Snape makes several long, slow blinks as his brain processes what he is hearing. Brows furrowing and dark brown eyes squinting with the effort to rearranged his point of view to fit what Harry was attempting to show him.

Harry did not blame him, it had been a long rant. So long that Harry had to pause for a long moment in order to drink water out of the thermos Harry always packed around.

It wasn’t a lie either. Harry as a child didn’t know what to call what had been just a fact of life. Post-therapy Harry now had vocabulary to describe the actions of back then, of Harry in the past had just adapted as best he could and just assumed all adults were like that and tried really hard not to think about it.

Everything had been better if Harry chose not to think to much about anything.

“Is this misconception that had been told to you about all Slytherins being out to murder you the sole reason you had been an absolute terror towards me for all of those years? I do realize that I had been… harsh towards you, but had you truly believed that I was capable of murdering my students?” Snape asks with what was probably going to be the closest the man was ever capable of being self-aware.

Harry can’t help but make a bitter scoff at this. “You make it sound as if no one had made mention at every other opportunity of your Death Eater past, or how, as a Slytherin you were predisposed by the sorting hat to desire to bathe in the blood of mixed breeds like myself, lower class urchins who were stuffed into cupboards and existed only on the charity of a politician such as Dumbledore, like myself, and muggleborns like my mother and best friend. Making your apparent hatred of James Potter from the ages of eleven to thirteen seemingly to be all about you being bent out of shape that he dared not want to shag his first cousin-dash-half-sister-dash-auntie and that his wretched improper evidence of his non-incestuous inclinations dared still breathe the same air as you. Which to a muggle raised child was a really weird thing to be so fixated on, the muggle raised kids saw you lot as being kind of like a cross between hillbillies and fake royalty. And then you kept making snide remarks about Hermione’s teeth, which to a clueless English wizard is just generic sexist racism, but to a muggle kid it flagged you into solid this-man-is-a-possible-pervert-with-creepy-photos-under-his-floorboards territory. You clearly don’t know but muggles have made a lot of movies about what fascist men find so fascinating about the mouths of girls and women. The second world war and the atrocities of the colonization days has painted a completely different picture than what any wizard would have known about. The cultural context between my world and your world could not have been made any starker than my first few weeks of classes with you.”

Snape stares at Harry in dawning horror.

Good. Harry may have stretched the truth a bit on this, but it is true that a teacher making snide comments about the teeth of underaged children was creepy in a perverse way. Too much history, and… Snape had been the fucking adult in the room!

Why was he ever put in charge of children. Snape seemed to still be practically one himself mentally.

“I’m not saying that you hadn’t made it easy for me to have appropriately shown open distaste for you since minute one. We come from completely different worlds, and everything I had been told about James had been a lie. There wasn’t anything for us to really work with in terms of peace.”

“I am not-“ Snape stutters looking immensely flustered.

“I know. I know that _now_.” Harry assures the man. “And I knew it by the end of first year. Hermione… _assured_ me that the other girls from the other dorms knew that you were the one to go to for pain potions and to make sure stalkers changed their attitudes. That you were um… _oblivious_ and grouchy but harmless. Towards girls. She still thought you were trying to kill me though. And she got her revenge against you so it evens out.”

At this Snape looks instantly nervous. “…How did she exact revenge?”

“You know how in your class she used to ask so many questions that you tried to scare her into stopping but it only seemed to get increasingly worse and nothing would ever deter her at all no matter how hard you tried? Well to most of those questions she already knew the answers, and none of the other teachers got the same treatment.” Harry tells the man, because Harry has recently discovered this wonderful little tidbit and it was a million times better than the time she had set Snape on fire.

“I vaguely recall Ronald making far worse callous comments to her face than I had ever been capable of.” Snape boldly claims.

Which… he’s not exactly wrong now that Harry thinks about it…

“Ron also wasn’t a full grown man with administrative access to girl bathrooms, dorms, or showers. And she did not fall in love with you or get her heart broken over and over again by you, and you never got under her skin as much as he had, or had been her very first time only to make her regret it when all he started to care about was having sex and not actually talking anymore. In this case I really should not be jealous of Ron. Better to be remembered as the personification of the inappropriately oblivious wizard upper class white male privilege than Ron status of actually did know better but because he’s a upper class wizard of white male privilege thought that he was just owed the right to stop being romantic or her friend after a certain point. Aurars and fame brought out the worst bits of him.” Harry points out reasonably taking another sip of water.

“You went out of your way to piss off a smart one, what did you expect would happen? You were smart as a student once what would you have done in her position? Because I bet you would have gotten revenge by asking lots of questions your teacher would have to think really hard about before answering so as not to look like an idiot.”

Harry waits patiently for Snape to stop pursing his lips in and unhappy mue and slowly come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t ever on the higher moral ground with Hermione.

“I genuinely had not realized that my attempts to prevent her from becoming a teacher’s pet would be seen as being so inappropriate.” Snape frets, Harry senses he might be trying to think back to figure out how many might have feared he was a pedophile for his off-colored comments.

Also good. Because he’d been the adult in the room. He should be concerned.

“You had built a good reputation with the girls, they all knew you were safe. Hermione was mostly pissed over how you treated me that’s all. If it had just been her she would have just asked you something horribly embarrassing during your office hours like why she was bleeding through her pants and that would have been that.” Harry assures the man. “We all knew that you weren’t a pervert like Lockhart so relax.”

“She blamed me for my actions when you intentionally mimicked James Potter with far too well in order to rile me up.” Snape fixates as if to deflect blame.

Harry rolls their eyes.

“According to _you_. Only with _you_ had I ever been able to do that part of my job perfectly. I didn’t even have to try at all with you, just showed up with his face and that was that.” Harry corrects bitterly. “To the other adults though I was never able to mimic him well enough to appease them and it just reminded them that he was dead and they were left with the wretched halfling who should have died instead. They never treated me as well as they treated the other kids, they treated me like a tool that could easily be thrown away because I wasn’t Purebred or too much of a painful burden to look at if I didn’t do a good job fulfilling my role as the reincarnation of James so that they could pretend that the blood of the Pureblood would live on or whatever, and when I acted like myself in all of my angry and betrayed glory given how often they lied about protecting me from people trying to kill me and then were surprised when I stopped wanting to trust them, I was punished. Which is ironic because with you some days all I had to do was make the same faces James had done in photographs I’ve seen of him and you’d be set off as if his ghost were clawing its way out of hell to rip you apart. In fact it had worked so well with you that I often had wanted to just **_not_** show up to class, especially after I found out about what the four of them had done to you, it became a lot harder being able to put forth the effort required of me. It was easier back when James had still been seen as a good guy to justify it all to myself. After living with my aunt, others making me adhere to certain roles in exchange for food had just been how adults always seemed to work, and I hadn’t thought that there was anything wrong with it… but after… finding out about you it… I realized that the James Potter everyone had remembered never existed, and the Harry Potter people saw me as was nothing but a fiction they had made up and forced me to play along to make them feel better. They hadn’t wanted a hero back, they had just wanted me to act a certain way so that they could escape to a fantasy to before their first war because the war had been so bad that they chose not to remember how it had really been like before it had broken out. You remember the few times where I had not acted like James at all, like refusing to own up to putting my name in the goblet, or going against the Ministry about Riddle being back, or the snake-speak thing, or being so wracked with grief about Sirius’s murder that I had stopped acting altogether? People tried to kill me or physically harm me for it. Classmates, close friends, even people in my own dorm room would tell me to go off and die because I had disappointed them for not acting like the ideal they had wanted me to emulate. Even trying to hex me and maybe murder me because they were so angry that I had betrayed them for not acting like James well enough. It has always been made very clear that I was not… allowed at Hogwarts or in the wizarding world because I had magic I was only allowed if I became James. In fact, being an absolute orphan without any living Potter relatives, I was always told by Dumbledore that I had a job to fulfill in exchange for him organizing my stay in Hogwarts, because without an adult willing to do that I would have ended up like all the other true orphans you people forget that the war had created. On the street! I was only ever treated with genuine kindness when I conformed to their myth of what Harry Potter was supposed to be according to each individual and what James Potter represented to them.”

To this bit of fact Snape still seems irritatingly befuddled as Harry waits for him to respond.

Harry waits a while in fact.

“Harriet… I believe that you are operating under a misconception. There was no condition that you had to act like James in order to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts.” Snape tries to reason with Harry. And while Harry is aware that most people would swear up and down that their love was not conditional, their actions had spoken loud and clear. They had seen a child’s life as being disposable, they had punished Harry, however subconsciously, for not being James.

No one would have treated a Purebred child the same way they had treated Harry. They did not treat Neville with the same blatant disregard they did Harry.

“Do you need another round in the pensieve in order for me to be believed?” Harry challenges feeling a little like punching someone Harry has gotten so worked up by remembering the past. “If so then I suggest you eat and use the loo first because there is hours upon hours’ worth of my memories where people reprimand me for acting like myself and not James, to my face. They would say: _“You are Harry Potter, you are supposed to be like this or that not what you have just said or done, if your father were here he’d be disgraced_ ” There was never a day that went by where someone did not expressly state how I was supposed to conduct myself to best represent their precious _myth_.”

This time Snape rubs at his chin as if in deep thought about an unexpected new species of beetle having crossed his path. Like, the man looks morbidly fascinated but at the same time kind of acting as if Harry were venomous at the moment.

Wait, what was the point of this whole conversation? Harry had lost track mid-rant.

 ** _Brrrring!_** Went the timer.

“Ah shoot dinner.”

After having a little time to calm down while extracting the Yorkshire puddings from the oven for the cooling rack (which had thankfully come out pretty well given the difficulty of the recipe and the spells used to keep the batter cool while in the oven as it heated up to the perfect hot temperature before dispelling to allow the batter to cook), Harry contemplates how to naturally go back to the original train of thought in a way that might actually get through to the manifestation.

Or the real man… who Harry had seen die but was somehow… in Harry’s kitchen.

“How precisely did you develop this… impression that your worth was only measured against that of James potter- I mean a specific example for any one individual.” Snape requests as Harry preps the stuffing.

God this was beginning to sound like one or two of Harry’s past therapy sessions.

“That was generally situational depending on the person I was with since no two people could agree on what they wanted out of me. Ginny had been the most extreme, starting out with verbal bullying if I did not conform to her perfect vision of Harry Potter and then progressing to the use of potions, spells, and her fists to keep me in line when the reality fell short. Dumbledore gaslighted me so hard sometimes that I felt downright suicidal all because he made me feel as if it were my fault that I had survived and James hadn’t. Slughorn had this weird… almost perverse obsession with seeing me as a collectable item that he wanted to dress up and show off at his extremely unfairly exclusive parties to feed his own narcissism and because James had been all for that he got confused by how uncomfortable he made me feel, McGonagall was a confusing wild card seeing as how in one moment she would ignore me then she’d be suffocating when I needed it the least, then she refused to do her job with the whole listening to her students warning her of impending danger, often she’d go misty eyed at how awful I was being treated but lifted not one finger against holy saint Dumbledore even when she knew he was in the wrong, then whenever I did something that I personally was proud of she’d snatch that fission of glory away by going all misty-eyed and saying that I was totally acting just like James and whatever bid I tried to make at escaping his shadow would be lost. Sirius was exhausting because he had always wanted me to play and not… take care of myself. He didn’t want to take care of me either the way I needed him to because I needed a parent not a Purebred looking for a plaything. He had difficulty with not calling me James instead of Harry and when I confronted him about what he had done to you and how he had tried to murder you in cold blood-…”

Harry stops at the slightly feral look in Snape’s eye at the mention of Sirius.

This was an impending argument that Harry best head off. Quickly.

“…I don’t know why people over there thought I was happy to have their attention and praise when they kept comparing me to a dead man. Or when they had wanted me to become a murderer so that they didn’t have to. I had been angry, resentful and just so… _so_ very tired by all of them. Most of the time the comments about how I reminded them of James was purely a shallow visual appearance thing, but the rest with me having to act the part was equally shallow, and awkward. Because I had never met the man and yet I was expected to emulate him and… more often than not, even when I was trying my very hardest, I always fell short because I couldn’t read their minds to know that they wanted.”

Harry casts Snape a glare. “Much to my annoyance you were the only one out of the lot where I so much as breathed and you’d see James, and it was not always to the benefit of my survival in that hellhole. Sometimes it was, because they were all classist bastards and annoying you brought back fond memories for them about how charming James had been when he’d gotten in trouble. How his silver tongue had made them feel all chuffed as he slimed his way into their sympathies in order to let him off the hook.”

“So you… would antagonize me in order to win easy acceptance.” Snape determines as if to confirm the point of this whole conversation down to such inaccurate simplicities.

“Sometimes, when there was a chance I’d be given a tin of ginger newts or lemon drops in exchange for my performance. Those kept for a very long time and I could hide them in my pockets as emergency rations during the summer.” Harry still has mixed feelings about the empty tins after it came out that Snape had been a good guy all along. Harry had once thought they were just treats to make Harry feel better about being bullied by a teacher but once Harry had grown up enough to realize that Harry was being given treats when Snape actually had made a good point about Harry going off on dangerous adventures being wrong things suddenly took a sinister edge.

“Not all the time though.” Harry firmly corrects because there was more to it than that. “Until you gave me your memories it had been drummed into me that my survival depended solely on Dumbledore, and that you, being a Slytherin who clearly did not want me there, was naturally detrimental to my continued ability to draw breath and be allowed food. You made really good points about children going off into dangerous situations being a bad thing, but due to my source of food and shelter being perceived to be on the line, on top of it being made clear that everybody seemed to know about the cupboard and my aunt trying to low-key murder me in a way that wouldn’t get her into trouble, the context of what you had meant did not… translate over. Understand that for a good chunk of my life my uncle kept talking about how he wanted to build a barbeque out back and how cement was really good at hiding the bodies of unwanted magical freaks. As a child, with a child’s understanding of the world, all I understood was that the only thing keeping me alive was people wanting me being at Hogwarts, that Dumbledore condoned how my relatives treated me because I was never wanted enough because I wasn’t a pureblood like James, and you being Dumbledore’s man seemed to really want me to not be wanted at Hogwarts and therefore if I let you win I’d be fertilizer for my aunt’s garden.”

Snape looks like he had just been slapped by this news.

“I do know better now. But it took years for it to become clear that you had no fucking clue what was going on between me and your old boss behind your back. Mostly I really Just wanted you to let me do my assigned job as handed down by your boss and collogues and leave me be so that I could leave you be and you’d be one less thing I needed to keep track of. Some of it was to get emergency rations for summer, but not all the time. When we first met your visceral hatred came completely out of the blue, and at first if I had it my way you’d see me as just Harry the child who was no different than any other child in your class. You’d leave me alone and I’d leave you alone. …But then things got complicated that first year and there was no longer any chance of me wanting to make peace with you.”

“How exactly does Quirrell factor into your hatred of me?” Snape asks, not angry but seemingly genuinely curious. In a morbidly fascinated sort of way.

“Well, someone had tried to kill me and everyone heavily implied that it probably had been you because Slytherins murdered my family and Malfoy openly spoke about how the Slytherin dorm as a whole unit wanted to finish the job because I refused to one of his collectable cronies… and he kind of seemed to imply that he also thought you tried to kill me and he was all for it. Nobody in the other houses felt that they could trust the adults to protect them from the apparently murder happy Slytherins because _Fluffy_ , and Dumbledore sending kids out to the forest for detention with a unicorn killer on the loose… and then after I survived almost being murdered for the… what fifth time that year? Just after the very last scraps of what little innocence I had managed to keep when my touch literally boiled the skin off of a man’s face down to the bone and his eyes had burst with hot eyeball juice being flung into in my face along with his blood misting up mu nose-… I woke up in the infirmary with a psychopathically cheerful Dumbledore. He had brought me gifts, he had arranged a huge celebration for the accidental killing of his employee. He instructed me that it would be in my best interests, seeing as how he controlled the food and my safety, to never again think too hard about Quirrell, or tell anyone about the possession. That the thing that had possessed his body would return, and that while I exceeded Dumbledore’s expectations in solving the puzzle he had wanted me and my friends to solve on top of surviving, I had not managed to murder the right man so I had to return to being starved and beaten up all summer because my mother had been the one to save my life and kill Riddle and she was no longer around to protect me so I was at the mercy of Dumbledore’s charity. Then that summer Dobby, who was contracted to work for the Malfoys at the time, easily found me at my relatives. Which meant that the whole blood protection thing was a big fat lie, and when I confronted Dumbledore he said that no one wanted me, that because I hadn’t been able to fulfill my duties correctly I was a burden and needed to shut up. So from twelfth year to sixth year I kept trying to do everything I could to be good enough to be put somewhere I could be safe for the summer and you seemed to keep getting in the way of my chance to ensure that. But all of that had been a lie, hadn’t it. He just wanted me to keep my trap shut so that no one would suspect him once someone or something got lucky and bumped me off, and you were keenly aware that I had just been a child who normally would have been dead a million times over for what must have looked like suicidal stupidity to you instead of desperation for the nightmare to be over with and be allowed a loving home to go back to, guaranteed access to food, no looming threats of murderers hidden in plain sight in the hallways and dorms of a place I lived most of the year in but had never actually been safe. Not sure who I pissed off more, you for almost dying all the time, or Dumbledore because I refused to let all the things thrown at me actually kill me.”

Harry has to take another very long drink of water, voice having gone hoarse from the very long, tiring explanation. Turning attention back towards putting thin slices of roast beef into half of the Yorkshire puddings.

Snape makes a lot of faces as he processes the reality of how things had seemed from the disjointed perspective of a hungry eleven-year-old minus all of the bits where young Harry had told himself stories of destiny and the greater good to be able to stomach getting out of bed. At the time Harry had compartmentalized everything so that it could be bearable to deal with, but now that Harry is finally removed from that environment it became easier to realize what Harry had done as a child by playing into him trying to act like James was a survival mechanism and not because he _wanted_ to mimic James. All Harry had ever wanted was to just be allowed to be Harry, and Harry had said as much all the time but no one listened because James had been all that mattered. Harry did not risk his life escaping his relatives in a flying car because he trusted Dumbledore to go fetch him if he didn’t show up. It was made clear, if not verbally then heavily implied, that Harry had to show up on time or else Harry would be left for dead. Dumbledore probably would have bided his time and acted all surprised to find a dead boy locked up in an evil muggle residence.

…Come to think of it Dobby wasn’t exactly all that bright when it came to noticing that Harry was slowly dying in that awful little room. The elf almost killed him by accident a lot that year. So caught up Dobby had been with the myth of Harry Potter that Harry had never been… completely human nor mortal to the little elf. Harry still loved and missed him but Dobby had been so caught up in Harry being almost god-tier indestructible that it overrode whatever spells were in place preventing elves from crushing children’s arm bones.

As well as almost actually killing Harry with a heavy magical ball of death.

Dobby also didn’t worry about Harry going back to an awful place for the summers so… maybe it was for the best that the elf never found out that Harry Potter was a lie. It broke Harry’s heart but for most people in Harry’s past life their love was exclusively conditional in that Harry had to perform his given role perfectly, if Harry didn’t then they would not love him. No matter how nice they were in the end the myth mattered more than the reality. Harry had been in danger of dying in that room but since it did not involve the prophecy it had not mattered.

Harry as a person never truly mattered. No matter how kindly they all acted as they led Harry into a nightmare. Oh yes they had all been so very sweet, and caring. Wanting to be saved but not face themselves as being in the wrong for hurting a child.

The silence is awkward but Harry has sort of lost their voice by this point and piping the creamy horseradish sauce into fat dots on top of the Yorkshire puddings takes concentration, as does harvesting greens from the _HydroFresh_ planter to garnish the puddings with chive flowers.

“I thought you adored Albus Dumbledore.” Snape says looking stunned.

“Of course I loved him.” Harry sighs, exhausted, voice rough from so much use. “He gave me no other choice but to love him. Unlike my aunt he could act really nice even when he was being an absolute monster, he gave me gifts when no one had ever given me gifts before, he could talk so sweetly that I’d wind up questioning whether things were actually as horrible as they actually were. He controlled information so I’d be dependent on him to know what was going on, he controlled who I was allowed to talk to, controlled when I was allowed to be rescued from my aunt if she pushed too far, controlled the food, controlled the shelter, controlled the house points, controlled my dorm, controlled my money, controlled the people around me, controlled everything that he could manage in my life until he became my life. To my child self he made himself the manifestation of magical world and without him I struggled because he made sure that everything I knew about the world was limited to a point to where I would be lost without him. Adults have trouble escaping from such environments, imagine, for a moment, how it had been for a drafted child soldier with no legal protections or anywhere else to run to. You’d love him too if you had been in my situation. You would have no choice but to love him! Anybody who did not love Dumbledore always got punished or killed. While he had been alive he had been as close as cruel as one could get to an all knowing god.”

At this Snape looks absolutely shaken his face screaming _oh-lordy-holy-mother-fucking-hell-what-have-I-just-walked-into-with-this-discussion?_

“Was it really that awful, being Harry Potter?” Snape asks, Harry can almost hear the man’s brain whirring away as he tried to make sense of all of this.

For this Harry scoffs out a laugh, looking up at the man, meeting his confused brown eyes.

“Says the black rook to the white pawn.” Harry replies in a flat croaking voice.


	8. To Gaslight Oneself (look for the cracks in her logic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Ginny. This chapter is about Ginny POV. Mentions of slight suicidal thoughts, loneliness, exposition about the problems with boarding school, mentions of sibling neglect, her frustratingly toeing the line towards recognizing that she is completely at fault but at the same time blaming others for how she turned out, unhealthy visualizations, if you are looking for her to get a karmic comeuppance this is not that chapter- but if don't mind her getting a lesser, quiet sort of comeuppance that will be a slow build then do read on.
> 
> A sober Ginny recovering from an operation wakes up to early morning snowfall in Amsterdam, she makes herself hot coco and contemplates on her past and present and the what if's in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to make things clear: Ginny has not at all found any sort of redemption other than realizing that love potions do not solve any of her problems. She may feel remorse but she is still far from safe for anyone to be really close to. She may have complicated genuine reasons for how she had turned out but that still does not excuse her behavior that she is still acting on. She may be doing what she can in order to keep a foothold in the lifestyle she now enjoys, but that still does not excuse her throwing people from her past under the tram to get there. Just because she might seem less hostile now does not make her any less dangerous nor excuse the fact that she is capable of doing horrible things if given half an excuse. She tried to force another human being to become dependent on her so that she could get away with being a terrible person but still have someone there to cling to. Abusive people are pathetic because instead of working with their partners to have some sort of healthy reciprocal give and take dynamic, they need to have someone else around to keep validating them and supporting them without giving anything back. They may act like they don't give a damn about you but there is a reason why they'll throw a fit if you try to leave, they need you more than you need them and the fact that you have every right to leave and live a happier life without them frightens them. Ginny may be pathetic, but she is far from safe.
> 
> In fact it could be argued that she is even more dangerous sober because she can think things through more clearly. Cover her own tracks.
> 
> Villains that are complicatedly human are very difficult to write well because it can be frustrating if they decide for their own benefit to consciously stop being dastardly in a way that will make it easy for them to get caught because they start acting almost normal. Without any grand karmic punishments i'll admit it feels weird writing about Ginny, but I want to take on the challenge of there being a more quiet, yet underhanded sort of fate for Ginny. Because in the real world toxic people do move on and can make their more problematic tendencies go dormant to a certain extent even if they still hold the full potential to cause a lot of damage if the situation is just right.
> 
> In Ginny's case I wanted to try to explore a possibility as to why she seemed to be a distinct non-character in the books, which seems to be mostly because she's... pretty much abandoned by her older brothers for most of her schooling. During her first year she had felt so lonely and frightened being in such an alien environment after being sent away from everything she had ever known but her older brothers pretty much just ignored her or teased her when she kind of needed then and none of them bothered to notice that she was acting all off. Then after that first year they all still seem to push her to the background and forgot that she had almost died and was suffering from PTSD from her experience with a genocidal psycho getting all up in her brain. Private school separated her from her parents and she was pretty much raised by strangers who didn't exactly do very much raising so much as left the children to raise themselves and then let the children deal with danger on their own. It's no excuse for her behavior but it does explain why she had, in this story, tried to latch on to Harry to 'fix' herself, and to fight off crippling loneliness and feelings of inadequacy. Instead of confronting her family about how they were pushing her into the background and not protecting her when she needed them and how she felt like her parents were more strangers than family the longer she spent away from them, and how she was not alright in the head after fighting a war, she chose to stay silent and refused to work on her familial relationships.
> 
> Yes, her family kind of letting her fade into the wallpaper had been their fault, but with seven children and both parents working for a secret vigilante society it also made them not recognizing that something was wrong, it makes the wrong excusable. Blaming them won't help her, recognizing that nobody will help her unless she says something will be a step in the right direction, realizing that she needs to get help from a professional and learn the basics of healthy human interaction that she had never been taught while in Hogwarts is a necessity that will not be realized unless she takes action by herself to ask a trained professional for help.
> 
> But the question is will she ever?
> 
> At this point it could go in either direction. Honestly I have two separate ideas of what to do with her but i'm still deciding on which fate she will choose to walk towards: Therapy or Fallout.

_Amsterdam…_

Ginny wakes up early, which is not unusual for her now given that practice always starts early. On work days she actually enjoys this because she got to wake up in the quiet of the morning when very few others were awake, half the year it would be still dark outside and she felt a sense of security being sometimes the only one to walk down to the field because she was so early to show up, while the other half she’d walk onto the practice grounds to the sight of a brilliant sunrise that, unlike the sunrise just after the final battle, she could actually stop and take a moment to enjoy how pretty everything looked at the dawn of a new day. Appreciate that she was somewhere better than where she had been before. When she had someplace to go and a purpose for the day she could feel confident in where she had ended up, relieved even. For she was in a better place now, one where she is allowed to do what she loved and learn who she was outside of some boy everyone told her she had to marry. On those days she could feel like someone got to get a new lease of life and feel content with that.

But today is her day off. So her mind wanders and she can no longer pretend to forget about what she had lost when she had been the villain.

Snow is falling slowly out her bedroom window in big fat globs, the streets outside look downright… cute. Like, she feels a little like she’s a little girl looking through the window of Honeydukes and seeing a expertly crafted tiny miniature town made up of sweets in the front window display. It looks so surreally idealist outside that she feels her mind slip towards dangerous musing that she desperately tried to avoid thinking about normally but when it was just her and she had no distractions she will look over to the other side of the bed and think things.

Like why she still can’t sleep in the middle of her bed even though she is alone.

In the early morning with no distractions and feeling vulnerable after just waking up she can still almost feel Harry lying next to her.

Only in this case her mind half imagines what it would have been like if things had been… different between them. If she had realized she had loved him sooner, if Harry had fallen in love back, if he had been the one she escaped to Amsterdam with. If he were the one to be the housewife while she went to work, if she had learned to be gentle with him and hold him in her arms instead of expecting him to always be the big spoon or to always be the one to sweep her off her feet, she could have been that for him.

What would he be doing at that moment? Sleeping most likely. He was always very tired, even before the war. He’d be curled up in a tight little ball under the bedclothes to conserve warmth while he slept soundly and the outside world has fallen into a hush at the falling snow.

It is foolish of course to be thinking such thoughts. What with how simply they can unravel if she thinks too much about specifics and comes to remember that if not for the potions Harry would not have even stayed. That such thoughts are impossible because no matter how gentle she feels she could have been with him now it still doesn’t negate the reality that **_he had never returned her feelings even on his own and he spent the majority of their relationship trying to leave_**.

But… she still misses him. Misses the support he provided her. The companionship.

She misses the small taste of what could have been that she had not realized was even there until an owl had dumped most of Harry’s things at her feet and his final letter to her told her that he was exorcising everything she had ever given him from his life because he wanted to cut all ties to her completely.

The small spark of _something_ genuine and soft they had shared briefly that summer when she had gotten that contract with the Harpies, what Harry had showed her with his genuine kindness and unconditional caring, had died before it could turn into anything because she had taken it for granted.

It… never even had a chance. Not when the only thing keeping him stuck to her was tied to the potion and the spells.

There was no use laminating over what she should have done… especially when a true romance would be impossible even without the potion to catch his attention, but that still doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still miss him. It would have never worked, even after she had grown out of being so… what she had been like as a stupid teenager, it still would not have worked.

Because Harry was never interested in her that way.

She sometimes wondered, given how much he seemed to care about her, but there is no denying that she kept having to dose him just to get his attention, that he had wanted to leave her after the war was over.

But still… would Harry have been the one to accept that she never wanted to be anyone’s mum?

She gingerly runs her fingers over the three, small, newly healed scars on her lower belly while she stares at all of the flowers and cards people sent her in the past week while she had been busy recovering.

She had told people that she had been experiencing cramps even when it wasn’t her time to bleed and that the healers said something weird was growing where it shouldn’t and she needed to get them taken out, assuring them that everything came back clean, it was all benign, but you know, _uncomfortable_. Gotta get the little fuckers out. No one but the people who operated on her had to know the truth. That the growths were… normal anatomy rather than abnormalities.

It took a while to come to terms with herself that she really should not fight something that is just an absolute truth about herself. She had tried that before, even though she was not fully conscious as to why she was doing the self-destructive things that she had done to herself to try to “fix” herself, and it hadn’t done anything but bring her absolute misery to try to force herself to become someone she wasn’t.

**She is not her mother.**

Ginny doesn’t want kids. She doesn’t want to get pregnant, she doesn’t want to become a mum. It’s more than just giving up her career and freedom, because plenty of witches have children and still get to have lives, and Ginny applauds them for it. Over half of her team has children, and they balance being on the team with raising the little sprogs pretty damn well! They even have a team day care for the tykes to hang out in and one of those emergency call trees in case something happens and the rest of the team needs to be contacted. Unlike back home with the Harpies and other major league British witch’s teams, most places these days do not force you to retire just for the sin of getting pregnant.

It is not about the career or being selfish or anything that mum and dad and her older brothers would accuse of her for not popping out seven more children and be a housewife raising the heirs to the Potter family. That may have been mum’s idea of a good life well spent but that kind of thing… let alone having even one child, just isn’t for her, she doesn’t actually like kids. She’ll look after her teammates brats in an emergency, but Ginny herself is no one’s mother. That’s just the thing, freedom and careers are only perks, but at the very core of the issue she just simply doesn’t want children because she does not possess the maternal instinct to go all goo-goo gaga over the sight of an infant nor does she particularly feel an instinct to care for and nurture another living human being who would be dependent upon her for things that Ginny does not have the ability to properly give. Ginny is not her mum, she doesn’t mother people. Generally, while she’d been in school, she hexed people. Kids need mothers who will give a crap, and Ginny not only does not give a crap, but the mere thought of pregnancy drives her to fill up her flask with water and drink, because she does not do hard alcohol anymore but the placebo effect using the actions of comforting old habits is real and it helps.

Though she does have to use the loo a bunch.

She feels a sense of relief whenever she traces her fingers over the fading scars where they had removed her ovaries and philopena tubes, sad relief because of how much of her life had been destroyed by trying to deny to herself that she didn’t want children which was partly what had driven her to drinking. Partly because there had also been the war and her place in the family being all fucked up after she was pretty much abandoned to be raised by strangers for most of the year for seven years and… one… two… three-ish months of her life.

But still, even if she had not been able to realize this sooner, in time to save the bits of her old life that she had actually liked, she feels nothing but relief now. She might technically be physically lighter by a few grams, but emotionally she feels like a prisoner set free from a life sentence.

Definitely for the best that Harry isn’t still stuck with her. He wanted children, wanted a normal life where he could be a good dad and shit. Wanted the life he was never allowed to have, or at least that’s what he kept saying, back when Harry used to tell her things. Being fifteen at the time she hadn’t been really listening… she regrets that now. Not learning more about him, the real him, while she had the chance. She had been so caught up in her own head that it surprised her to realize- just after she realized that she had lost him because that the weird stain on the floor was his blood that she had spilt from his body- that at the end of the day… she didn’t really know Harry very well. She knew what he was supposed to be, but she hadn’t really bothered listening to him if he talked about anything that wasn’t… well… to be honest she preferred it if he didn’t really talk much. Quidditch was fine, the only subject that either of them could talk about at length without her getting irritated because he never talked in the grand, romance-novel-like, romantic overtures she had expected of him, he was too focused on the war. Then after the war he just… stopped talking. Mostly he had tried to leave. But before when she had been fifteen and it was as good as it was ever going to get…

Listening was not what she had planned for. He was _supposed_ to be perfect for her the same way she had always read about and she was… not… wanting to do the same. In a really weird way? It wasn’t until he was gone that she suddenly wanted to know more about _him_ , rather than about… how his latest exciting adventure went and oooh how cool it was to be dating a famous person who was like what Lockhart could only dream of being anywhere as close to being nearly so-… yeah. She… had not treated him the way she had wanted him to treat her.

She hadn’t been a very good girlfriend in other respects either. Being all finnicky about hating him when he was there, wanting him to keep his trap shut so she didn’t have to listen to him tell her to stop drinking, only to then miss him with every fiber of her soul and wanting to know more about him when he wasn’t in her life anymore.

It irritates her thinking about him being with another witch, so she does her best to try not to think about it. She may miss him but she’s not delusional enough to keep expecting childish fantasies to become real. She already tried to force Harry to become the magical cure to transform her into the kind of Pureblooded girl that her family would accept and to take away all of her pain just by love alone.

But that just isn’t how it works. Ginny still loves her family, and she misses them so much… but what she misses the most is how things had been _before_ she had been sent to Hogwarts. Back when her family was her family and not just a bunch of strangers who would ignore her for most of the year and only visit for Christmas. She thinks that Charlie had the right idea moving so far away from them all, because how can they be called a family if their parents didn’t get to raise them for half of their lives?

…How was Ginny supposed to become the daughter and sister they wanted when that would have been nothing but a lie? Marriage and babies. That was it as far as they seemed to be concerned with her. To marry Ron’s best friend and the Savior of their world and pop out babies until she died or turned into mum. Just ignore what happened her first year, ignore the fact that they had abandoned her to be raised by strangers in a school that kept trying to kill them, and ignore that she went through a war and needed help. She needed _real help_ , not to be scolded and told what good little girls were supposed to do.

Of course on Ginny’s end she hadn’t _talked_ to anybody about what she was going through. There was that. Maybe if she had it would have made a difference, or maybe they would have told her to just stop as if depression and being angry all the time was something she was choosing rather than a symptom of a bigger issue.

Ginny thinks about this a lot before and after interviews with the press. Not because she particularly wants to think about it but because she knows that questions will be asked and that… she will have to get her story just right. To continue to keep being afforded the life she currently enjoys she has to balance the line between carefully trying to not demonize her family and yet still telling the semi-truth about why she doesn’t speak to her family or anyone back home anymore other than the usual “I fought Death Eaters as a child in a school that was supposed to protect us but it was staffed by incompetent drunkards who didn’t give a shit about us”. Explain how stupid Purebred culture is and why she had to flee from it instead of admitting that she hadn’t been given much choice but to run because she had been a right nightmare…

It’s a complicated mess having to project herself as being not at all at fault so that she can continue to afford to live where she does and enjoy the life she has had to build for herself from almost nothing. Being the first to explain that she had turned to drink back home just to make everything bearable and make her numb because they were forcing her to go back to a place she had seen people get violently ripped apart and that tended to set her off to scream and lash out uncontrollably, in the same breath that she tries very hard to make her family out to be merely… “out of touch with reality”. The opposite of abusive but… still too set in their Purebred ways for it to be healthy for her to be around them.

She has had to get ahead of anything that might leak out from magical London, and it has worked.

To an almost devastating degree. But… she is at the very least… safe. Secure in where she is now. People sympathize with her and that is what protects her on the rare occasion a photo of her or someone who looks like her doing a keg stand leeks out of Britain.

Even if she has to be a lying bitch for it to stay that way.

Not that… she looks anything like her old photographs anymore. On top of the fact that she doesn’t even go by the Weasley name anymore. Very few people even know who the hell that Weasley girl even is. English Purebred families just aren’t really known to the outside world.

Nobody cares. All the stupid bloody bullshite that started the war in the first place and the rest of the world doesn’t care.

So much so that Ginny can get away with what she had done in her past. For now at least. Hence why she has taken careful care to cover her arse.

There is… no information available to give her guidance about what happened to assholes after they left their old lives and started new ones. Plenty of information out there to help people in Harry’s situation, plenty of information for men and dealing with their anger, but not for girls. No, men can have their redemption arcs but girls are supposed to suffer and die horribly for being a bitch. It’s in all of the stories, in all of the magazines, everywhere. All a man has to do is go to rehab, which is pretty much just a retreat for adults as far as she can tell by the brochures she’s read, then he makes a bunch of apologies and everything is all better even though he’s done really horrible things and has likely not really changed his ways.

A girl on the other hand, she apparently needed to suffer some sort of horrible fate to befit the horrible things she had done. A girl can’t ever truly redeem herself, she needed a punishment so great it would annihilate her. Like for instance being put in Azkaban or locked up in an asylum by her own family instead of being brought to a mind healer for some serious help. Because Merlin help any girl who had just done everything in her power to force herself to both conform to her family and society’s expectations of her while also having to deal with messy fallout of surviving a bloody war.

Ginny is currently in a grey area where arguably, in her opinion, she has received her punishment… yet at the same time she somehow still managed to land on her feet in the process and she feels… better for some reason… healthier in mind and spirit than she had back home. The punishment is horrible because she does still want the approval, love, and support of her family and old friends. She misses them. She misses Harry. She has been forced to move on but that doesn’t mean that she’s forgotten the good things that she hadn’t fully appreciated until they were gone. That just because her life keeps moving forward doesn’t mean that she is dismayed at the increasing amount of distance she is putting between herself and home without even trying very hard.

She is _alone_ here in this strange new magical country on the Continent in the sense that before she had been part of the Weasley main family branch, her whole identity centered around being Purebred and Gryffindor, the latest generation in a long, sacred, and honored old sacred-twenty-eight bloodline that, while not illustrious in their money were still deeply respected as an integral fixture of the wizarding world. She had been her mother’s prized and only baby girl whom mum would call the last of the Prewetts as if sharing what little of her mother’s extinct line that she could with Ginny. She had been part of the same legendary generation as Harry Potter and fought beside him and for him to win a war, she had been the little sister of the boy who was Harry Potter’s best friend, she had…

And this is where it all circles back around to where all of the trouble had begun. For Ginny… never really had Harry. The article in Witch’s Weekly had been vague but at the same time, most likely to prevent anyone being able to pin any complaints against them, had specifically said that if the wizard did not keep his interest after the effects had worn off or if you ended up having to dose him regularly then he wasn’t ever really interested in you and you had to stop.

But she had been too caught up in her own delusions of wanting to be known as the girl who bagged The Harry Potter for a husband. Harry himself hadn’t… really… she hadn’t accounted for him, just what being his girlfriend would _represent_ for her reputation as a Purebred. Rather than be honest with herself about what she had actually needed and wanted, which was to go pro with quidditch, never have children, and get with someone who loved and supported her no matter what.

In a twisted way Harry had been that last one for her. Granted most of it might have been all potion, but when it wasn’t potion he had at least listened to her, took the time to understand her, desired for her to not drink herself to death, and he openly supported all of the ambitions she was truly interested in. She became dependent on him to take care of her even when he was literally dying from what she was putting into his tea.

This is where the whole illusion unraveled. Because Harry… hadn’t wanted her, had never even given her a second look really. To him she had just been Ron’s baby sister and that was it. They hadn’t… even really had a single complete conversation just between the two of them before Ginny had dosed him. Then when she had him at his most vulnerable and he had _needed_ her because he was so _ill_ … so hurt and broken and in need of someone to help take care of him through his recovery… she had… made thing worse.

She had almost killed him.

And he had tried to run away from her, break up with her for good, over, and over, and over until Ginny had lost track how many times she had to get him to be dragged back.

It still hurts that she hadn’t actually allowed herself to fall for Harry as just him being himself until after he was lost to her. It hurts that now that she’s gotten this far she can’t just… completely move on already! If she were a good person she should be able to stop picturing him curled up in her bed or cooking something in her kitchen… but she can’t.

She hasn’t had the same thoughts about her family, but that’s more because they pretty much had made it clear back home that they were not supportive of her going pro instead of becoming a housewife. They had acted as if her not coming back from the war the same person she had been before Hogwarts was just a phase or some mood that they expected her to just turn off because they only cared about how it made them feel…

But also it’s impossible for Ginny to picture her family visiting her in Amsterdam because, to put it simply: Hogwarts. Her family were barely ever in the picture for a good chunk of her memories since most of them had disappeared off to boarding school and only sporadically visited or, like Charlie, were just gone. Ginny came back from her first year a stranger to herself and just when she needed her parents and brothers the most they swept the whole getting possessed thing under the rug after about a week and expected her to get over it because… they expected ten-year-old Ginny to still be in there… somewhere.

The saddest part of this whole affair is that the longer Ginny spend at Hogwarts the more she got lost in the shuffle of red hair and her brother’s more interesting lives. She was the baby no one had time for, least of all Ron who had once been her only friend and playmate before he went away.

She had been… so lonely. A family so huge that she couldn’t go a day without it being mentioned at least five times, and yet she was either too much of a _girl_ or too little to be any fun. Luna and Nev were her best friends, and she had made lots of other friends too in school, but they all mostly kept bringing up how she needed to catch Harry Potter’s attention soon or laminated that she had missed her chance, or they were all huddling together and jumping at shadows because of the latest fuck-up the adults had made was lurking around trying to kill them.

No one had ever felt safe at Hogwarts. She needed her brothers more than anything back then.

But… no. Ginny had to learn to take care of herself an grow meaner and more angry by the day until she didn’t even want to be near them either. She still loved them with every fiber of her being but she also could not stand to look at them sometimes because she was the girl and the baby and someone for them to dismiss and leave all by herself all alone. Taking for granted that they were blood-related, as if… they never thought that they might lose her one day.

For a short, absolutely convoluted time after the war, Harry had been more of a family to her than her blood-related family. He had been her everything for such a long time anyway. The thing she’d think about to ignore the fact that the family she used to have was slowly turning into strangers once they got home. Never having time for her, always leaving, never even sending her letters. Then she went to Hogwarts and slowly her own family grew more… difficult for her to want to deal with because they kept expecting the ten-year-old version of her or they just left her all alone to fend for herself, Harry Potter had become a reason to get out of bed, getting good grades, joining the team, being his most loyal fan, all of it to became her whole life until…

There wasn’t anything left of herself.

She had been so lonely. She just… had wanted him to fix her so she could… become someone her family would actually be proud of. Pay attention to. Feel some kind of comfortable pride being the wife and mother of the Potter line. Pride instead of despair and dread. Be able to stand her family whom she loves so much it hurts, for she just wanted to be able to go back to before Hogwarts had taken everyone including herself away!

…She had also messed everything up to a point to where she can’t even think about what it would be like for her family to come visit her in Amsterdam, because, like Percy had told her, they all want to lock her away somewhere she’d be all alone anyway.

What was the point of imagining herself with them when all they wanted was for her to either be alone, or to make herself miserable trying to conform to what they told her what was supposed to make her happy. Because Ginny at ten-years-old had wanted to marry Harry Potter and nothing else and no one would forget it or had even acted as if that fact should have changed a lot as she grew up.

They sent her off to Hogwarts during a war knowing she would be a target. Everyone else got to stay away and be safe. Her life in particular hadn’t had the same value as everyone else’s.

She had been fifteen when they packed up her things, they didn’t even celebrate her birthday because she had to be shipped out the very next day and everyone was too busy to stop and think that she had just turned sixteen, but was still a teenager too young for her mission.

Harry had given her a gift though. A small one. Somehow he had found the time to bake her a small pouch bag of treats and gave them to mum for safe keeping until it was time to go.

Ginny hadn’t appreciated them though. She had wanted a ring, or a pendant, or something more lasting to keep her tied to him. A promise of marriage at the very least!

At the time she had been pissed that he had broken up with her, and that she hadn’t let her come with him, and that Ron had interrupted her plan to shag him so that he would have no choice but to get back together with her, and all she had to show for it was an unsigned card telling her to ‘Be safe’, and a bag of useless small biscuits as if, in her mind at the time, he had thought her pathetically girly enough to want something a weak simpering little loser cunt would find romantic. The only thing worse would have been giving her a flower!

Ginny at one day newly sixteen years of age had thought herself too mature for such measly tokens of what was to a Purebred, a form of feminine pity. Harry had committed an embarrassing social faux pas and Ginny at the time wondered why her mum had even bothered to tell Ginny that Harry had made it when only _girls_ were supposed to do something so… silly. Traditionally _Lady_ witches ordered their house elves to make treats when they felt bad for someone they had just turned down a courtship with, or had rejected, or was currently courting but desired to maintain that she desired to remain separate and unattached to him. A gift of pity, sometimes even seen as an insult given that only homosexual wizards would be so inappropriately feminine. Which was triply worse for her at the time since she knew he wouldn’t know what it meant, which made her feel annoyed that he had even tried at all, salt being rubbed into the wound and all that. She had desired more from him, something a Purebred wizard or even Dean would be man enough to provide her with: hardcore proof that he would forever be her’s. What she had gotten was sweet, and cute, and everything she had not wanted from him.

She had left the bag on the train.

Uneaten.

She regrets it now of course. Now that her life choices has slapped her in the face with irreversible consequences she finds herself dreaming about eating them greedily to enjoy one last scrap of joy before being faced with a Hogwarts run by Death Eaters and incompetent cowards.

They had smelled delicious. Fragrant with warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg and they had been spelled warm so it was like she was holding comfort in a cloth pouch. Growing up as a Weasley she should have known better than to waste good food when it was given to her, but she had been a dumb teenager who wanted to feel like an edgy badass while knowingly walking into what had been the second biggest mistake of her life.

And to make things worse she has heard from a lot of muggleborns in her new life, because of them celebrating their Valentine’s Day traditions at work, that handmaking someone treats or even buying really nice chocolates is considered to be something of a big deal for them. It shows that they care about you. A lot.

Everyone else hadn’t even bothered to give her much aside from hugs and kisses from her parents when they weren’t too busy with… war things with the Order. She understands that they were busy, and that Ginny had made it clear that she hadn’t wanted to celebrate anyway… but still she had only said that because nobody had seemed to care.

Maybe if she had insisted they would have realized she wasn’t cut out for war and would have made her stay. Or maybe Ginny would have broken down and cried and chosen to stay.

Or maybe it was just everyone having an excuse to stop pretending that everything was normal and Hogwarts hadn’t made them all strangers to one another.

So no. she can’t visualize her family being happy for her. She can only imagine Harry shuffling down in slippers and a house robe to the front door to check the mail, or him making them both his special thick hot chocolate so that they could both watch the snow fall down over the picturesque buildings and streets outside as if they were inside a snow globe.

In the quiet privacy of her new home Ginny allows herself to wallow in her self-tormenting imagination of an imaginary version of a Harry that she did not have to keep dosing with potion just to keep him from leaving her. A version of Harry she had learned to be gentle to and who Ginny had no reason to feel pangs of guilt over the mere thought of because she had never harmed him. A faint vision flittering on fragile wings through her mind as she wonders, not in depth, for thinking too hard upon specifics made the idea retreat like shadows in the face of the rising sun.

What would Harry be doing if he were here with her?

But no. He’s not there. She will never get to know the sides of him that no one else got to see.

He’s not her friend anymore.

All she is left with is the knowledge that she has to use the muggle phone to call the hairdressers for an appointment to cut and dye her hair again. Her red roots are showing through a little bit too much and her hair has grown out of its short boy cut to a point to where it whips into her face. She’s also meeting some friends for a late lunch today, and later she has to hammer out a press statement with her PR agent about her recovery, and then she has dinner with Howard Stevenson her sponsor and sort-of friend to catch up. He had been the one with the boat she had woken up on when she had ran away, and he had been the one to house her and help her get out the Harpy’s contract so that she could get her advance and move into he current home. Theirs is a… strange kind of relationship/business partnership. He likes her partly because she genuinely really couldn’t give a damn about his womanizing lifestyle and partly because she has made him a lot of extra cash winning her team games and whatnot.

She will go out, enjoy herself, and not think about how her upcoming third year of being completely sober marks yet another year she has been away from home, and how it has been about eight or so years since she had last been blissfully… not completely untouched by the bad stuff that happened at Hogwarts, but at the very least she had not at that point thrown her whole life away. She doesn’t remember the week or the day she had read that Witch’s Weekly article, or the summer day when she had still been fourteen and she had visited the grand opening of her brothers’ joke shop and had eyed up their selection of love potions with the seed of desperation turning into a plan germinating in her brain, so she can’t work out any specific anniversary dates… but it still makes her feel bereft because of how simple it would have been to just… accept that the boy she liked didn’t like her back.

So simple. She would not have had to do any work at all. The same with the war, she could have got it into her brain to not go to Hogwarts and do something else to help but stay the hell away from the epicenter of everything because the bad guys had chosen to make a children’s boarding school the center of everything.

So… so very simple…

Maybe she would have still drifted away from her family but at the very least she could have become like Charlie and still been part of the family in some way, even if no one approved of her choosing to not get married and pop out babies and die a sad and fat housewife.

Or maybe she would have turned to drink to make everything bearable anyway and gotten so drunk that she decided to jump off a cliff rather than sit there and take one more snide comment about how these strangers she was related to would never accept her or support her because she wasn’t what a Purebred witch was supposed to become.

Or maybe, eventually, she would have forced them to recognize that she’s allowed to have her own choices in life, and that just because she’s the girl and baby of the family does not mean that she’d always stick around with their dismissive attitude towards her. Make them choose between her and their stupid marriage and babies plan for her.

Maybe she could have been able to discover what she had wanted for herself sooner. Who she was without having to rely of Harry Potter to make everything better.

Or… maybe not. Most likely not.

It still messes her up just how one or two simple decisions could have saved her from her intense downward spiral where she had lost everything. Yet at the same time without those two decisions she would not have been given the support base to pursue a career she loves without being shamed for not settling down and popping out grandchildren, and the freedom to choose to remove the looming threat of an accidental pregnancy completely.

She’s not even sure her family even _knows_ where she fucking is right now. London is so isolated that the outside world may as well be a different planet, and London has such a horrible reputation that most major leagues refuse to play them in quidditch anymore for safety concerns. Amsterdam included. Especially once she joined one of the top teams and talked up how awful it was over there.

It simply is not fair that these two aspects, her family and her dreams, could never have existed in the same reality without a fight. She is still reeling over what she had done to Harry yet still, somehow, managed to get away from the ultimate consequences: Azkaban.

For her to be living a relatively normal life is insane! She still wakes up in cold sweats over her past and yet she is still somehow doing okay for a complete washout. She is in the grey area of getting away with something and yet at the same time not. Knowing that she is better off now anyway but still half-wondering if this kind of freedom would have been possible at all if she had done things differently, or if she would have ended up worse off anyway.

For the moment she lets herself sulk, sip at her hot chocolate, and pretend it isn’t all watery but the nice fancy creamy thick stuff that Harry used to make to try to fight off the chill from his frail bones.

On the edges of her consciousness, as fragile as an aging butterfly’s wing Ginny envisions Harry sitting across from her on the window seat, steaming mug in hand as his vibrant green eyes watch the snow fall over the hushed early morning cityscape.

She touches her fading scars and tries to focus on the feeling of rightness their presence gives her, rather than the vulnerable lonely guilt she feels at the thought of Harry Potter not sharing this moment with her.

Stuck in between the joy of freedom and the bitter cost it took to get there.


	9. Not In Hogwarts Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of past-partner abuse, emotional effects of manipulation, discussion of non-con but nothing too graphic, a brief touch on the existence of chimeras (please watch the YouTube link this actually happens, these are real people, and they deserve respect and love), just a toe touched on pointing out the fact that human chromosomes and genetics are vastly more complicated, not to mention not exactly binary, than the author had known before doing research, and not an inch more explored into it because the author found themselves way too out of their depth on all of the science.
> 
> Harry makes Severus watch a few educational videos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I beg you to please look at these it is very important, not to understand this chapter, but just as a basic necessity to further understand that trans people deserve to have rights, the arguments the TERFs levy against them are bullshit, and not everybody fits into binary biological sex categories whether they are trans or not:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WsF9Z4B7T8
> 
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/
> 
> And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Overall I found out that if a potion existed that could conceal a baby's gender a lot of people who did not meet certain biological genetic criteria might be heavily negatively impacted. I'm not going to figure out how because this is just fan fiction but it is an interesting thought that in this fictional world there would be no guarantee that such a potion would work because the wizards don't really know anything about genetic cue markers or how gonads are formed, they just know that sometimes the potion they made up a few centuries ago works and sometimes it doesn't.

_Dear Minerva…._ He writes, then stops there. The blank page of the parchment yawns dauntingly up at him.

Severus does not know where to even begin.

Of course he shall keep Harriet secret. It is the only means to keep her safe from a world who demands their golden _boy_ back to fix everything. Yet he needs to also frame the information he has gathered in a way that will make it absolutely clear that Harry Potter will never return.

Of course… Harriet has already provided him with more reason than simply the reality of her gender and parentage to give to Minerva as an excuse as to why Severus shall not be handing Harry Potter over to them… Harriet is in fact under the assumption that they had all been psychopathic inbred aristocratic lunatics who had held her hostage by threatening to take away her access to food and shelter unless she performed some sort of act where she was to pretend she was their ideal version of James Potter in order to amuse her captors into giving her scraps of rations to bring with her over the summers where she would be subjected to severe starvation and abuse… all just to keep her docile. Keep her quiet for fear of being left for dead.

Kept her trapped like a bird in a cage.

It will break Minerva’s heart to learn the ugly reality of how their worship of Harry Potter had translated over in such a way. However, it is… a justified reason to never desire to return. Some may begrudge her for not reveling in their worship, yet Severus gets the distinct impression that Harriet is far too fed up to care about not hurting anyone’s feelings.

Severus knows that the Order truly adores Harry Potter, that they had never meant to give off the impression that their kindness hinged on such impossible conditions needing to be met. They were merely following Albus’s command in the blind faith that the man who had defeated Gellert Grindelwald had known what was best for the side of the Light to win. Blind faith that he knew something that those who knew of Harry Potter’s ill-treatment had not known, for surely there was some rhyme and reason to Albus leaving the Chosen One in such an awful place, some hidden power that the Savior must possess that made him different than any normal child, more resilient, super human.

Saintly, holy, something that was divine for Harry Potter was chosen by the fates.

Harriet was not chosen by the fates however. She is not the Chosen One foreseen to be born to save them. She was just an ordinary child who merely refused to die and did her best under extraordinarily impossible circumstances. She had done extraordinary things but she had not done them because she had wanted to, she did them because it had been either to do something or to perish from those around her refusing to do anything because they were all too busy trusting that Albus knew what he was doing.

…Which, obviously he had not. …Known what he was doing that is.

_Longbottom! For pity’s sakes!_

Yet… clearly their subconscious biases combined with their grief have clearly done more harm than they had meant to have inflicted on the Savior they had all adored so greatly. Severus included, but his biases against the son of James Potter had been partly exasperated by her attempts to mimic what others told her as to how James Potter would have acted like in order to appease some horrible misconception that if she did not they would kill her.

Of course Severus forgives her past behavior towards himself given the circumstances… and the fact that she had talked herself hoarse offering him an apology as well as a thorough explanation of why she had seemed to make his job harder than it had to be. She had been too young to understand that Severus, while bitter, had been actively invested in her survival.

Though… to be fair perhaps not nearly enough given that Severus _had_ become aware of the abuse she had suffered under Petunia’s thumb. Severus will admit that he had dropped the ball in not addressing the severity of that situation. She had looked healthy at the time. She had fans and seemingly the whole of the magical world in the palm of her hands… on top of Severus also blindly following Albus in the misguided faith that the old fool knew _something_ that Severus had not. He felt pity for her at the time that is for certain, but the war was on the verge of beginning with the Dark Lord’s return and thus Severus had thought that his energies were better spent not asking questions and just doing his job as the spy in the enemy camp.

His… own biases against James Potter could have gotten her killed. The fact that she is currently still so ill is proof that he should have asked questions. It hurts him to swallow the truth, yet in this he does have to acknowledge that in the end she had been somewhat correct in her assessment of him as a child: He had not been the most efficient resource for her own survival. He had simply allowed the illusion that James Potter had cast to create yet another prop to elevate his own self-image to dictate how he handled… a child. A child who was only concerned with how to best survive in a hostile alien environment. She had shrewdly assessed Severus and deemed him a hinderance rather than an asset. Nothing more nothing less. She had perceived their actions towards her were the same as how Petunia had raised her to interpret the world. From her knowledge on how adults were supposed to act, she of course, naturally, assumed that she had been given orders from the adults that she had to act accordingly in order to be permitted food, affection, and an education.

She did her job.

Severus got in the way of that so she defended herself from what she had clearly thought was a threat to her life.

And Severus cannot help but feel horrified by the fact. The sheer matter-of-fact blatancy she described how things had been from her point of view as if she found Severus to be too old to still be so childishly naïve about her role in their war. Very poignant in underlining her outsider status in her recounting of events, how she, being keenly aware that Purebreds were more highly valued than muggleborns or half-bloods, understood that as a child of a muggleborn, and as someone who was intentionally placed in an abusive muggle household, she was to never forget that she did not belong in either world and therefore had nowhere else to turn to but to rely on the whims of Albus and the Hogwarts staff.

He almost doesn’t want to believe her, and yet… while the reality had been distorted through the eyes of a child who could not possibly understand what was happening, her interpretation of events is not false. Particularly given that they had all agreed to not tell her anything unless it was absolutely necessary or had assumed one of the others would explain facts to her. Such censorship had proven more than once to drive her into becoming more and more self-destructive, yet none of them had understood why. They had meant to protect her, yet by her own account of events and how she had and still is interpreting their true motivations they had only caused more harm than good.

She did her job… and now she apparently hates them all and rightly so!

She had not asked to be put in such a situation. What Severus had assumed was hordes of adoring fans to her perspective had been monstrous strangers who… were forcing her to fight their battles on top of being their source of entertainment with James Potter impersonations or else they would leave her to starve to death in a miserable hole in the wall.

If he were to ask he wonders if her hatred for them, for there is no misinterpreting the wild look of fury pouring through her every pour when she had talked about how she had been treated, would extend to feeling no remorse toward the current crisis their world faces.

He’s not certain that his original plan of evoking the ones he had thought she cared for the most would inspire her out of a sense of duty to do… something. She clearly despises them all!

Save for Severus, due to Severus being an almost kindred spirit in the worst twisted way conceivable, and due to the fact that she now knows that Severus had been attempting to protect her for her whole life in what was… _apparently_ , the most responsible adult way that she had ever encountered.

Severus. The bitter old man who got her mother killed. The fool who terrorized her for just looking like James Potter, _he_ is the one she has decided to still like for the mere virtue that none else had _tried_ to protect her in the ways that she desperately needed. Perhaps he was never kind nor fair nor… sane around her, but he still tried to protect her and that is all that matters to her. Certainly his open understanding of her situation as she had been betrayed by James Potter herself does help. For of course Severus would be capable of offering up understanding rather than condemnation given the circumstances surrounding her true biological heritage. Severus is… the only other person in the world who could possibly understand.

Severus feels distinctly upset over this. He is aware that she is scraping at the bottom of the barrel as far as kindred spirits can be found if all she can dredge up is him. Miserably weeping into his chest, seeking comfort in his arms like a lost child…

How lonely must she feel to turn to him so desperately? For her to allow him full reign over her sanctuary despite-… surely she must know why he is there. The purpose of him going to so much trouble finding her at all is for the… sake of attempting to magically fix up a situation… in which she as a singular individual would not be able to remedy. It would kill her.

…The Order would likely try to command Severus bring her anyway. Perhaps Harriet is banking on Severus being able to dissuade any more from coming out this far. For Severus is one who will not shy away from hurting other people’s feelings in order to do his job effectively.

She knows that he will do what is necessary to make certain the very last scrap of Lily’s life, what she had worked so hard to provide for her child, her sacrifice, will not be in vain.

She must know this, for Harriet has gone to the trouble of ensuring he is well provided for the duration of his stay in Canada.

Harriet has kindly seen fit to offer Severus the option to reside in the Potter mansion.

“You can chose any unclaimed room you want. They’re big enough to be the size of the flat I used to live in or bigger. We can go visit the Potter’s storage, get you some fancy furniture, dip into what little of James’s salary he had not spent on partying and booze to get you a nice mattress with sheets. Please. There is way too much empty space for just one person. Besides you must have gone through hell and back to find me, least I could do is to give you a quiet place to recover from your trip.” She had offered at dinner after he has had the chance to review the legal documentation to allow him access to her lab and other facilities, her voice so hoarse it clearly pains her to speak.

It is a bribe. Harriet hid nothing in her blatant desire to “sweeten the deal” as they say, in order to ensure her own continued survival.

Severus moved in that very evening. For it is only practical for him to reside close to her in order to best carry out his duties. To take care of her in her ailing health, to stick it to James Potter by running his fingers all over the Potter family possessions, and to report back to Minerva in a way that shan’t be detrimental to Harriet’s wellbeing.

After Harriet had retired to bed several hours ago he had taken his time to choose an adequate place to rest for the night while also allowing him to ruminate over his available options for his extended stay. He does not know how long he will be residing in the, now extinct Potter family, mansion, yet it is likely that it will extend until she no longer requires potions to live, if not longer given how much he will need to investigate for Minerva.

Severus will take better care of Lily’s child and help to remedy the damage James Potter had caused her.

Of course, there is more than the damage that James Potter had caused Lily’s child to contend with. Harriet had not reached full physical puberty until just after the war, and even that was delayed some by the abuse brought on by Ginevra, the effects of moonstone as well as several other toxic components found in the contaminated perfume bottles Severus had discovered would definitely have contributed to Harriet’s ill-health.

“Why had you stayed in the magical world after the war?” Severus found himself asking at dinner even though he knew he would likely be rebuffed until her voice fully returned. It had been a quiet meal taken in the greenhouse, graced with phenomenally delicious food and a great deal of silent contemplation on Severus’s part.

“Tried to leave.” She tells him her voice fading. “Wasn’t allowed. She… stopped me. I… wasn’t up to scratch. She used potions… spells… to turn me into… her James. She wanted James. Not me. She… tried to fix me. Make me into… him.”

“You are speaking of Ginevra Weasley?” Severus had asked gently, just for clarification.

Harriet had nodded, solemn.

“Can you verify if her actions are partly to blame for your frail health?” Severus itched to get better details but restrained himself given that she had been in no condition for a full explanation.

Once again she nodded in the affirmative. Her expression grim.

“Why…” Severus had bitten his tongue before he could ask. Knowing all too well the multitude of reasons why she could not turn Ginevra in. The laws are… murky at best when it comes to the legality of such measures taken to ensnare a husband, or wife, with only the most universally deadly infatuation serums being outlawed outright. Harriet’s true identity would complicate matters in a trial if it were ever found out, and even if she had been able to keep it secret the truth of her delayed puberty would not be taken with the gravity of seriousness it deserved against Ginevra. More it would be seen as emasculating and a source of shame to bring upon Harriet’s shoulders for not having become a man at an acceptable point in life. There would be a risk that sympathies would shift toward Ginevra’s favor.

“She… threatened to hurt… her family.”

“Pardon?”

Harriet had rubbed her throat, frustrated at her inability to elaborate.

 _‘Later.’_ She mouthed.

“I will of course be delighted to make use of your laboratory. While sparse, it is well-kept and all of that empty space will provide me more room to do what I do best, as you had said…” Severus had rambled on to prevent the silence from becoming oppressive while they ate their meal. Using her as a captive audience to soundboard his initial thoughts on how he would begin to make use of the space. For without a Potions Master it cannot be put to the best use possible. Which would be a shame, given that Severus can do a great many things with the space that James Potter would never have been capable of dreaming of even if he wasn’t a colossal Potter family disgrace in the field of potions.

That got a smile out of her, seemingly delighted that she no longer had to rattle around in the mansion all on her lonesome. Relieved for Severus’s skillset, for his ability to give her some small measure of vengeance.

Severus drums his fingers upon the rolltop section of what is a truly an impressively over elaborate desk. A desk that must have been specifically drawn up and commissioned by the original owner as perhaps a means to compensate for _something_. The desk itself resides in what must have been the previous Potions Master’s home office for it is connected to the potions lab via a hidden door behind the wall mirror on the main landing with one-way glass so that the Master can spy out without being seen themselves. Severus found it very shortly after he asked Harriet why there was a balcony overlooking the inside of the greenhouse and she had shown not only the hidden door but also that the very obviously modern muggle futon couch could be tugged down flat to create a guest bed! As well as slip of paper drawn up by Granger (Severus recognized the handwriting) detailing all of the little secret knobs and panels that have thus far been discovered in the rather large solid wooden desk.

The room is sparse with just a few textbooks from Harriet’s alternative school, some pens, curtains to block out the lights coming in from the balcony that overlooks the greenhouse. Initially Severus had thought it to be the perfect room for him to reside in, for it came with a loo and shower and connected directly to the two places that Severus, as the official potions consultant, will hold domain over.

Severus still took some time to mull over his options while contemplating what he should report back. He gained a better knowledge of the layout of the mansion even as he drew a blank over how to break the news to Minerva that he shall not be returning with Harry Potter, thus eventually decided to retire to somewhere he would be within sight of a bed and-

Procrastinating will get him nowhere.

He considers the blank page before him.

_Dear Minerva…. I regret to inform you that the contents of this letter will not be anywhere close to the news that you have been hoping for. The only comfort I can give you is that Lily’s child still lives. However…_

XXX

It was more than a little jarring coming across Snape feeding Hedwig and her children the next morning.

“This one refuses to come when called.” Snape points to Hedwig’s boyfriend who is glaring at Snape from his hiding place behind a support beam across the room.

“Casanova is a wild owl who only tolerates me because I give him his space and make his life easier by feeding his children. He usually just hunts for himself but he might take a rat if it’s levitated so that it looks like it’s skuttling across the floor-”

Casanova hisses.

“Never mind, he’s too stressed out right now to play. It’ll take a little while before he’s used to you. Like a lot of wild birds he’s territorial- it’s okay Cassi. He’s just feeding your family, he’s not here to steal Hedwig from you.” Harry coos to the flustered bird.

“How did a wild bird get through the standard wards that normally prevent such invasions?” Snape asks, as he pets Nymph who trills at the attention.

“Hedwig invited him in and he stays because she stays. He’s a good listener once he gets used to you long enough to not hiss every time you enter the room. But very much a wild bird.” Harry tells the man while wondering when life had gotten so… strange.

Harry is not prepared for hallucinations of a calm, polite Snape.

“I made hot chocolate.” Harriet tells him, making a retreat after one last look Hedwig’s way to assure themselves that yes, Hedwig had found a rat and the tail is sticking out of her mouth as she gulps it down. She and her little ones are fed.

The specter drinks greedily from his mug of hot chocolate so thick that the man uses his stirring spoon to shovel the contents of the quarter of the warm frothy drink into his mouth and devours the fry-up Harry provided for him with a relish Harry does not remember the man ever possessing at meals. Even downing the remaining half of Harry’s own mug when the daily shot proves too much for Harry to stomach anything other than slowly sipping their dietary supplement smoothie until the nausea becomes too much and Harry has to move forward with the rest of their daily routine.

Some manual labor will help give Harry some time to properly think. It is an old comfort, even with Harry’s horrible past, to just lose themself in the soothing routine of cleaning or cooking, only this time it is far more comforting for Harry who now does this for Harry’s sake, and thus is able to feel a little better just by the mere fact that they are no longer a slave. No matter what insanity is transpiring in the rest of Harry’s life. At least they are free.

“You should leave that for your elves.” Snape admonishes when Harry begins the washing up. “You look just a few moments from collapsing! Is your elf so incompetent that it cannot be bothered to lend aid to its mistress for even a simple mundane chore?”

“No elf lives here.” Harry tells him. “It’s just me.”

“Pardon?”

“I do not have an elf living here.” Harry clarifies turning off the water so that they can be heard.

“You got rid of the one you inherited from Black? What of the one who fawned over you after you had saved him from Lucius Malfoy?” The man demands in shock.

“Dobby died during the war. Kreature passed away of old age in his sleep after we had given his former master a proper burial and just a few days before my first menses.” Harry tells the man. “There are no elves here sir.”

The man stares at Harry for a long moment before slowly standing up and walking over to the large industrial sink. Murmuring a series of spells with his wand until all of the dishware have been magically cleaned and stacked neatly on the drying rack.

“…”

“We need to talk.” He says, guiding Harry back to the table to sit.

 _Oh boy here we go._ Harry thinks with dread.

“Hokay let’s write down a list of the things we need to get done for the week.” Harry improvises, trying to steer the conversation away from something that will be guaranteed to upset any wizard from the old country.

Harry is too nauseous and sleepy to be having a pointless argument.

“Number one priority is to acquire you a house elf.” The man insists with a set in his jaw.

Aw fuck.

“Slavery of all magical or human forms is banned in the American continent and it’s territories with a minimum of twenty to life in prison. No dice. We should probably head over to a home department store for your essentials around mid-afternoon when it’ll be the least busy-… by that outraged look on your face you’re not going to let the elf thing pass by without further discussion.”

“Harriet… what happened to the Potter family elves?”

“They were confiscated for rehabilitation in the sixties or the goblins moved them back to the estate in England.”

Snape’s expression is such a pure vision of aghast that he looks a little worryingly like a cartoon.

“ _Rehabilitation?”_ He gapes as if freeing slaves were a foreign concept.

Which… to him it would be… given who has been washing his laundry for who knows how many years. He had better hope that cloak was machine washable otherwise he’s going to have to be very nice to the dry-cleaning people.

“Elves still work but I do not qualify for that level of court approved special needs care that would involve an elf or Medicare specialist. Which, is what you need to have before the government grants you a dedicated visitation, and even then the elf is not owned by the sick person in question but a paid employee of the government as well as a protectorate citizen of the Elf Union Guild and is just there for a basic daily check-in and such. Not as a slave who does everything. I may be disabled to a degree but nothing is wrong with my magic and I am fully capable of independent living, therefore not categorized as requiring elf care.”

Snape blinks in absolute bafflement. “Elves have a _guild_?”

“They run it.”

“What?”

“We will have to get you some New World history books that will explain things better for you, but the short story is that in a lot of countries house elf slavery has been abolished and they have been working on reversing all of the spells and such that keep them magically born bound as slaves to upper nobility wizards. It’s… you will have to read the books and watch the documentaries but let me tell you it’s… a downright maddened story. Of course I used to have books on the subject from the history class I took in supplement schooling but Hermione borrowed them and hasn’t given them back yet.”

“How do you take care of yourself? You are quite ill Harriet. You cannot live by yourself in this state!”

“Magic mostly, and I also hire someone come in to help me with the house, and a guy to help with the yard work. They also have poppets here, and while they can’t do complex tasks they can dust, vacuum, and wash things. The greenhouse consists of mostly automated hydroponic beds which are easy to maintain because they have sensors that tell you if something is wrong… there also isn’t… much for there to clean- one person can’t make use of all of the rooms in this place so why furnish the rooms I never use?”

Snape’s vague expression of horror doesn’t dissipate even when the rest of the list is written up. It shows up often when they are bustling through the Pacific Waters Pier Front Magical Shopping Center and Brewery once he is confronted by an onslaught of not just witches and wizards but an infinitely more diverse array of what his country would define as “ _magical creatures not allowed to shop openly in **respectable** markets”_, while here ethnic groups of oni, goblins, elves, selkie, and so many more are considered to be just regular people with certain genetic magical traits and have a right to conduct their shopping in peace _thank you_.

Harry almost loses him twice in the shopping center because something or other caught his immediate attention through the shopfront window displays and they wind up with him wandering aimlessly through a modern magical shop in overwhelmed confusion while Harry sits by on a bench waiting for him to finish acclimating while guarding the bag of shale grey bedding he had chosen. For this Harry does everything possible to take the long route around to prevent him from coming face to face with the potions dispensary or the alchemist’s corner. The action clearly makes the man suspicious for he snatches up a center brochure with a map, but thankfully they had gotten almost everything they needed so Harry decides to give him some of Harry’s own spare stores in toiletries and pops them both out of there the moment they arrive in the covered parking lot’s apparition point.

Snape tries to make a big show about being onto Harry about rushing them both out of there by leading Harry up to the library where the magnifier desk lamps are located but Harry is so wiped out that Harry drifts off to sleep as soon as Harry is able to curl up on the library sofa.

A little over an hour later when Harry wakes up from the nap Snape is… staring. Vague look of horror back on his face, while sitting on the other sofa across from Harry, which is incredibly unnerving until Harry spies their medications all lined up nice and neatly all in a row with a sandwich and a glass of milk on the coffee table between them.

“Oh yeah, I need to take those now. Thank you.”

“Harriet… along with my Potions Mastery I am also a certified in medical brewing practice.” Snape begins as if Harry had not seen the man’s skill in potions first-hand while in the school infirmary. The man had brewed all of the potions that healed Harry after being sent there, not to mention Remus’s medication, and saving a petrified Hermione to name a few.

“You were able to deduce based on the types of medications I have to take just how serious my illness is.” Harry knows where this is going. “And you are concerned that the decision myself and my doctor have made to let me live by myself is a bad idea.”

“Your healer played an active role in prescribing that you are to live alone without the aid of an elf to ensure that your health and wellbeing are seen to?” Snape says in a tone that clearly implies that he is trying very hard to keep his calm over this.

Harry wonders at this sudden open show of concern given that at wizard Olympics nobody had given a damn about forcing a fourteen-year-old, who did not have the legal ability to defend himself, to participate in a death tournament with extremely dangerous trials. Nobody had given a damn about Harry being forced into the role of child soldier. And yet…

But Harry doesn’t point all this out because Snape obviously knows all this by now and the past wasn’t the main point the man is trying to make.

“In that file cabinet, third drawer down, are my copies of my doctor’s records, which do detail why I am here and not in a assisted care facility.” Harry begins wondering how one should begin going about explaining at-home independent patient recovery to an old fashioned wizard where the approach to healthcare is… hit and miss at best. Harry imagines that for women there is a great deal of waffling about over how “frail” and “delicate” they are which… doesn’t exactly lend much aid to recovery in terms of rehabilitation or learning how to live with the illness rather than be crippled by it.

“Since the inheritance, that my mother managed to make certain James would provide for me in his will, affords me the luxury of recovering from the fallout of his selfish near-fatal scheme without having to worry about paying rent or needing to get a taxing job to support myself, my doctors believe that the best course for as quick of a recovery as humanly possible is for me to attempt to live as normally as I possibly can in the privacy and comfort of my own home. Because the current medical community’s research into recovery times of survivors of traumatic injuries in general, and survivors of paternal concealment potions in particular, all point towards faster recoveries if the emphasis is placed on rehabilitation and learning to work around their limitations as they heal from trauma.”

“By living all on your lonesome. Taxing yourself by acting as your own house elf just to survive?” He demands in full disapproval.

Harry can’t help but think of the fleeting image of women lying in bed dressed in frilly nightgowns and looking picturesquely faint while a bunch of men in fancy robes titter about saying that the slight wind is too much for her to be outside lest it blow her breath away.

Was the Victorian trend of being “fashionably” ill still a thing where he’s from? Harry tries to remember if there had been anything on the matter that might have leaked through everyone’s attempts to keep Harry as oblivious to wizarding culture as possible, but still draws a blank.

“I need to exorcise my magic as well as my body in order to keep everything working properly.” Harry tells him firmly, cutting off any ideas the man might be potentially having about frilly nightgowns. “If I am confined to bedrest my health will only decline because my body is not getting the limited exorcise it needs to regain strength. My mental state requires me to stay active because if I can do things for myself, even to a limited degree, it helps keep me sane, it helps me assure myself that despite everything that has been done to me I have been able to begin to piece myself back together after I had been broken. It relaxes me to be able to still live independently even to the limited degree I currently exist in. It distracts me from the pain of the past and from feeling like I am an alien trapped inside my own body. Seeing with my own eyes my slow but steady progress of healing by being able to do a little more for myself is… words cannot describe just important that is.”

Snape blows out a slow breath, clearly upset but at the very least he _looks_ like he is considering Harry’s words.

“I quite like the bed already existing in my room. We shan’t require to hunt a frame down.”

“Okay.”

“I am also fully capable of doing my own shopping.”

“And I have a limited supply of energy when it comes to being out and about. I know. That’s why I wanted to avoid certain shops until you could plan out a few days solely devoted to you getting the chance to familiarize yourself with outside suppliers. Most of what I get for my own potions that I brew here come from the Potter estates because growing and raising ingredients is partly how they maintained a lot of their wealth, but there still is a lot that the Potters don’t provide so having a lot of time for you to assess different vendors would be a pretty important thing for you to do without keeping an eye on whether or not I fell asleep in public at the same time.”

Snape is silent while Harry eats and takes the meds, looking at the room filled with floor to ceiling shelves that are half-filled with books all around them as if he can’t quite believe that he’s there at all.

Given that Harry can’t wrap their own mind around the man and-or hallucination being there either for the next… however long Snape decides to stay, Harry can already tell that this was only going to get weirder.

“I imagine that being both utterly incapable of sharing the absolute truth of your past added onto being unable to be accepted as you are in our world amongst your former friends would force anyone, regardless of their current physical health, to need to learn to survive as best she can all on her lonesome.” He concludes, mostly to himself. “Just like your mother.”

This marks a trend in Snape’s treatment of Harry. One in which he tends to lean hard into acting as if Harry were almost too delicate to function, so he always seems to be either surprised or he frets when Harry manages to get stuff done on the occasions that Harry has a good day where Harry is not too sleepy or in pain to get things done.

Snape moves around with almost frightening proficiency, namely checking out the hydroponic beds and growing shelves, learning how to use the modern tech in the lab, running his hands all over the lab for good measure, trying to get Casanova used to him, enjoying exclusive use of the library, brewing, all of that on top of keeping an eye on Harry.

The man is still clearly grieving however, Harry’s not certain that he has ever been allowed to stop with him being forcefully outcast amongst both light and dark, muggle and wizardry. For the first few days he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he doesn’t have a job to keep him busy other than alternate between holing himself up in the secret room in the study and follow Harry around, Harry thinks the man would probably spend all day in bed if he weren’t too stubborn to show just how upset he is.

Which makes going out to do art modeling work a little difficult. There is a lot of open understanding when Harry has to explain to several people about the whole “wizard from old country stopping by and having medieval _opinions_ ” situation being the reason why Harry can’t come in to model at the moment, but going about addressing Snape himself on the topic is… touchy.

Not that Harry can’t stand firm, for that was what had to happen with Hermione and Andromeda, but Harry also… not really on steady mental ground when it comes to thinking about Snape in more than just abstract, compartmentalizing, completely ignoring huge issues sort of way.

Harry finds a sort of strange… anxiety at directly acknowledging that Snape… _might_ be alive. It’s one thing to finally find a sense of closure in providing Snape with the truth about mum and Harry’s very existence, while also being able to thank the man for all the good he has done, and also having at least one person from the past to take responsibility over the consequences of what had been done to Harry in order to try to help Harry heal for once. Instead of the usual method of just abandoning Harry when Harry wasn’t needed.

…Yet it is another to also have to deal with what Snape’s presence means. If he’s real then he was likely sent by someone in the Order and… Harry just does not have the emotional fortification to tough out fully confirming Snape as either a heartbreaking, soul crushing hallucination born from Harry’s loneliness, or if he is really there and Harry has to deal with the unwanted baggage that would entail. What with it being obvious that someone had wanted Snape to drag Harry back for one reason or another that is completely a flimsy excuse to just hide behind Harry like a human shield… again.

Harry is exhausted by anything relating to Hogwarts, so putting off having to deal with it is possibly the best recourse.

(Secretly, and only privately acknowledged in brief moments when Harry feels particularly emotionally strong, Harry does know from past research as well as past experience while suffering under the effects of Gin’s potions and spells, that hallucinations affect the mind in really messed up ways that _overwhelm_ all of the senses and Harry isn’t feeling not-there-things crawling over Harry’s skin, or smelling the cleaning liquids kept in Harry’s childhood cupboard, and everything doesn’t taste like Ginny’s shampoo. Snape himself does not act like a hallucination for there are too many tiny little details that prove that he’s too real to be a construct of the imagination, and the fact that Harry can have the mind to focus on the little details, along with having seen Snape interact with people in shops-… but Harry doesn’t have the energy to acknowledge this directly yet).

So what Harry does to save themself from sore vocal cords and to get Snape out of Harry’s hair for a bit is to:

_1, sit Snape down with a stack of documentaries on Involuntary Paternal Potion Sex Reassignment Survivors (IPPSRS, pronounced Ipsers), a documentary on female body positivity in art, and some snacks._

“You are living under the same roof with someone who suffers from chronic dysphoria this is required watching so that you know what to do if I have an episode where neither gender feels right and I freak out over feeling trapped inside a suffocating flesh cage that I can’t escape.”

This earns Harry a complicated look of mixed pity and trepidation, and Snape looks at the couch as if he’s a little afraid that it will bite him.

“My voice will go hoarse if I have to be the one to explain everything.” Harry interrupts the man before he can speak. “No. Sir. The conversation we need to have after this, that we both need to get out of the way, _today_ , will be easier if you have some necessary background information so that you can understand… at least a bit of all of the basic terminology and the background history of this violation to my body that I now have to live with and undergo a lot of transitional therapy for.”

Very slowly Snape sits down.

_2, Heave a huge relieved breath when the man sits down without a fight._

“So you _would_ have had to begin going through the very beginnings stages of puberty before you experienced your first menses, however due to the concealment potion still being in effect it either masked or suppressed normal bodily transitions from child into adult which made you all the more vulnerable to your current state of ill-health.” Snape says for clarification after he pauses the video.

“Yes. Normally I would have begun growing a chest and hips and other visible traits of a woman but because those were suppressed in favor of devoting bodily resources I didn’t really have into maintaining an outward appearance that looked like James, my body slowed down the process of going through puberty. Most of the changes not affected by the potion happened internally and was interrupted by stress and not being able to get anything to eat. Hence why nobody noticed my skin getting darker and the very first indication that something was off was when I found blood in my pants. The potion- well you know that it works _with_ the magic. When the potion is no longer working right in the body there is kind of like a sort of muscle memory that makes you hold shape. Which is how I can still sort of switch back and forth a bit.”

“Much like a metamorphmagus.”

“Minus having the ability to go back to looking like the very white, very manly photocopy of James the longer time moves on. It’s more… of a pseudo-male-looking version of my female form. The more the potion is flushed out of my system the less and less I’ll look like James.”

“If the potion had been brewed correctly you would have retained his form even after menses, but given he had obviously botched both the brewing and delivery of the potion… yes since it is designed to be filtered into the womb a regular menses cycle would begin to rid it from your system more rapidly than if it had been brewed correctly.” The man assesses from his own expert knowledge on the subject.

“Mum and I would have died if he had brewed it correctly. ‘S ‘posed to be given to her week six of pregnancy just before the umbilical cord forms, and then the mother has to take regular small doses. The bigger doses or just the one big dose he must have slipped to her would have put her into shock.”

“Bastard.” Snape sneers.

“Yes.”

Snape scowls through the big portions of the history section of the video (how the potion was invented in various areas of the world, why there were a staggering number of biological female babies masked to be male, severe malpractice, discriminatory laws, and such), which is understandable given how for a while before they realized that biological sex and gender norms were two very different things and that the situation was too complex and too human to fit into tidy little binary lines there were “doctors” (quacks) who either tried to make bank by insisting they held the power to force the male biology to _work_ (“produce viable seed”), or set up hellish camps to “teach” people how to be proper, demur, submissive, frightened, model societal expectations of who these extremely misogynistic groups said that women were supposed to be.

With a great deal of complicated parallels between IPPSR Survivors and the transgender community being both a separate yet related community of people, lynching, jail time, lobotomies, denial, mental health issues, and generally people refusing to understand that the survivor’s self-identity gender-wise is a lot more complicated because gender norms are an artificial construction, and while biological sex with the chromosomes and the DNA is never going to change, gender identity is something completely different, and the made-up roles society dictates on what men and what women were _supposed_ to act like varies widely between cultures, and just because the dominant culture dictates that things must meet their demands, does not mean that other cultures or sub-cultures within the dominant need to conform when the gendered binary norm set are stupidly treated like unbreakable rules! They do not work for everybody because not everybody fits into those narrow, impossible to fully achieve for every single person, definitions!

This only gets even more complicated when some cultures have more than two genders, on top of the fact that biological sex both biological and magical isn’t _always_ binary either. Such as is with the case of what are known as medical _human_ chimeras, and individuals naturally formed in the womb with another set of sexual organs, where people are born with an extra sex chromosome or have both male and female DNA in different parts of their bodies. And yes, those people do exist outside of circus side attractions, but is there a place in society for them to be treated like normal human beings? No. Instead they tend to be relegated to terrible off-brand television channels that make documentaries about those kind of people the same way they make documentaries on toddlers in beauty pageants, and people with weird “addictions” to eating borax.

Which consequently, can really fuck up an IPPSR Survivor, the extra chromosome and having two different DNA sequences in the same body happens far more often than people realize, and while most normal non-IPPSRS can go their entire lives never realizing that they have something _extra_ to them, for IPPSR Survivors it becomes impossible to live a normal life oblivious to a fact about themselves that only complicates an already terrible situation because the potion has a violent reaction when it comes into contact with anyone who doesn’t have a very specific chromosome and DNA configuration.

Bad enough that your family betrayed you before you were even born, bad enough that you have to suffer a forced reevaluation of your whole concept of what gender is and what you identify as (if one chooses to identify as anything at all), but to be added into yet another discriminated group of people that are seen to be a discriminated minority within an already discriminated group it… gets ugly.

Fortunately, things have gotten better in _some_ first world countries, not great but at least there are medical terms and less harmful programs, and community networks that don’t have to hide for fear of being killed anymore.

Snape pauses the telly.

“How long did it take you to accept that you are a woman?” Snape asks in a similar manner a child might ask a parent to try to explain the difference between boys and girls and not quite being old enough to fully understand.

“I never did. I mean I do prefer to be known and seen as a woman, but that’s… more of desire to be free of the Harry Potter legend.” Harry admits, miserably resting their cheek on the back of the sofa. “Inside my head I prefer to not… really think too much about it. If it think too much about it I freak out. Most nights I still wake up in the middle of the night in a blind panic because… it’s _still_ violating you know? No matter how clinical all of the facts are, or how easy it should be to want to go one way or the other to either defy James or to stick to what I have always known, no amount of logic or medical knowledge can erase that feeling of total violation. For the longest time having a say on who got to _touch_ me and what I _chose_ to do with _my_ body had been one of the very few things I was allowed to have to myself… but then my ability to consent to who touched me had been taken away at sixteen, and then shortly after the war I discover that not even my own body was mine to own. Not a single scrap of myself for the first two decades of my life had been genuinely mine, all of it was one lie put atop the other until it all came crashing down. I was never anything but a vessel for others to enact their fantasies onto. Whether that be a human meat shield, or a broken sex toy, all of it had been about what others wanted even if they had to dehumanize me in order to get even a pale imitation of what they desired for their end goals. And in the end not even that had been enough, what they desired out of me I could never be able to give them it in the exact way they had wanted.”

The man takes a few minutes to process this, before very carefully settling his hand on top of Harry’s. Making that face that made Harry think about frilly nightdresses and wizards standing around laminating over _wind_ being too strong to permit the woman have some fresh air.

“You made mention the other day that Ginevra had made use of potions in order to… control you.” He states, seemingly a little uncertain as to how to look not-scary for once. Obvious this has been a question he’s been wanting to ask but too intimidated to speak up. Given how it would involve Harry having to discuss their feelings.

Snape’s not good with feelings. Actions yes, feelings no.

“Potions and spells. Yes.”

“Which cumulated in a toxic accumulation of moonstone in your blood.”

“Yes.” Harry admits pensively. Preparing themselves for a very long explanation that, hopefully, would get through to him. There are things that Snape _needed_ to know.

“But that was later, I think, when she started having to use stronger variations in order to keep me in line. When She first dosed me at sixteen I had not been healthy enough to fight off the legal love potions she got from a shop, that is true, but there was more to it. I know that there are all sorts of… potions experts excusing the use of that stuff as just a funny prank or as being completely harmless because people who aren’t lonely, or aren’t already interested in someone else, or know they are gay are able to pick up on it, realize they’ve been dosed, and fight it off… but I hadn’t known I was slipped something. I had been so lonely and so terrified for so long that even if I had been healthy enough to fight it off, I still couldn’t have! The potion made me feel at my very safest when I was around her, which is ridiculous! She wasn’t safe! I didn’t know her! Not really. Before that point she and I had never had a private conversation with one another! I-… I saw her as almost like an adopted sister. I wanted so badly for her family to adopt me, I wanted a family! I-… It messed with my brain. She made sure to get me before we had learned about how amortentia smells like the things you like the most because she knew that under the potion’s influence I would be compromised by the suggestion of her enough that I might smell her. She hurt my friend Dean by dating him to try to make me jealous and when that didn’t work she delighted in the spectacle I had made under the potion’s influence when seeing her with him made me freak out because I was so afraid of how _lonely_ and how… frightened I felt when I wasn’t in her presence. I was already feeling downright suicidal at the time you see. Depressed, and exhausted, and terrified of what was to come, the potion was kind of addictive in a way, it made everything _stop_ for a little bit. Made me stop thinking for a little while. Turned everything off until nothing in the world matters aside from focusing on her. Even in a watered down form it was still just enough to have a strong effect on me, because I was just that desperate. …And then she took advantage of me when I was at my most vulnerable and incapable of saying no.”

“I… see.” Says Snape in an oddly small voice.

“Her Purebred status made her use of the stronger potions and spells legal might I add.” Harry clears their throat to try to get control over the shakiness and the raw edge of their voice. “If she were a muggleborn, squib, or just not from one of the sacred-twenty-eight I doubt that the option would have occurred to her. From what Hermione and I could gather based on previous court cases, in Purebred circles what she did would be frowned on but hardly anyone would begrudge her. Given as far as they are concerned I need to reproduce to save the Potter line and turn into their James Potter replacement puppet.”

“That is not so.” Snape denies immediately. “She is _vilified_ for her monstrous behavior towards you. None would see any honor behind her actions. If they become aware of her using illegal means as an attempt to own you like property criminal charges will be brought against her.”

Harry has to scoff at this. “Really? Because there was a wives advice book that she got all of the spells and such from, apparently it talked all about how to keep wizards at home long enough to breed heirs and ensure they stayed docile after coming back from war, or to keep a tight leash on husbands with wandering eyes. It was written by a Purebred for other Purebreds to use in order to keep the bloodlines pumping out more children to sell on the marriage market. We think she must have taken notes out of it from the Hogwarts’s library because Hermione says that it would have been too expensive for her to just buy it from a shop. She checked, the book is perfectly legal, the catalogue card is even _still in_ the Hogwarts library, meaning that it’s still in there, waiting to be used by maybe a less drunkenly prone young Purebred seeking knowledge on how to secure an acceptable marriage for their bloodline.”

“…What precisely is the title of this advice book?” Snape presses, looking increasingly foreboding the more they talk.

“ _Nice advice from Baltha thy wife_. The twentyyyy…-sixth republication I believe it had stated on the catalogue card Hermione had found during her investigation after everything came to light. The librarian at the time made a note that the recent book replaced the old publication because the new edition apparently has the very latest in innovative methods, on top of also preserving the most _favored_ classics of the original book. Only Purebreds can get their hands on a copy so… yeah. Unfortunately while immoral she hadn’t done a single provable illegal action according to your country’s _special exceptions_ made to Purebreds.”

“I beg to differ!” Snape protests with feeling.

“Only because I turned out to be too sick and too pathetically vulnerable for it to be safe.” Harry points out. “I do know, from experience and from hearing from other survivors, that it doesn’t take _much_ for that kind of thing to be dangerous and not everyone can outwardly look too sick or too emotionally compromised to be believed that they couldn’t fight being dosed up and that they were not able to consent at all. There is a _reason_ why she had such easy access to those sorts of potions and charms. The twins’ shop wasn’t the only place selling over-the-counter infatuation potions, also all of the text books from first year to seventh in Hogwarts have at least a dozen spells one can cast to take away someone’s right to say no. Sorry to burst your bubble sir but even if the name of Harry Potter can elevate me into pseudo-Purebred status, the fact that she had cottoned on that I had been planning on leaving the country anyway during the summer after the war will get my case thrown out. Consent does not matter in your world so long as the bottom line is preserved. No matter what she did to me all the wizards would care about is the fact that I had wanted to get away from _them_ because I do not owe wizarding London anything, and she had been able to temporarily stop me. Which had been the whole reason why magical London had experienced that brief, albeit misplaced sense of hope that the name of Harry Potter would be enough to hold everything together. Trust me, we looked into my options. There were none. I-…”

Harry holds up a finger to take a long drink to quench their parched throat.

“Once they found out about how she was treating me her family did try to catch her and send her to a mind healer, but she escaped them. They tried to find her but after a few months she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet- or… at least moved far enough into the Continent that they couldn’t track her. They hadn’t known what she was up to, and once they found out they were going to make sure she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else because even if your country wouldn’t do anything, they could.”

“Yet according to them she had escaped.” Snape finishes tersely.

“She stole my muggle credit card and used it to hop from one muggle train to another until she was out of the country and able to meet up with her other boyfriend. She hasn’t even bothered to send anyone a single Christmas card or even try to apologize for stabbing me with a broken whiskey bottle. Once she was gone… there was nothing that could be done.” Harry still felt a little bit of the sting from that. Her refusing to apologize and instead trying to force Harry to do so instead. “She got what she could out of me, and once it became clear that she couldn’t squeeze anything more she left everyone without so much as a goodbye. Granted, she was on the run, but at least one letter to her mother wouldn’t have killed her. …There was nothing more I could do after that except to pack up and move on.”

“Yet… there was one last measure you could take against her.” Snape says his voice thickening with horror as realization dawns over his face. “She cannot claim to have owned Harry Potter if there is nothing for her to claim as only her’s to possess.”

Harry doesn’t really feel all that surprised. A little embarrassed maybe, but if Snape had looked then it is hardly Harry’s fault that the man had started trying to search for Harry in the first place.

That was partly the point to being an art model after all.

“You were in muggle Oslo?”

“As well as Iceland.”

Ooh. Ouch. The man must be scarred for life! Harry’s not sure whether to feel sorry for Snape or amused by his haunted tone.

“Can’t cling onto that stupid legend as being a perfect Purebred ideal if his emancipated half-dead body is shoved up in their faces. Harry Potter can only keep being used as tool so long as the human wearing his skin remains hidden behind a veneer of myth. Exposing him was the only way to secure my freedom. It’s good you were able to find all of that. It means that if any wizard tries to find Harry Potter they will have to have that imaginary ideal little golden boy image in their heads shattered and hopefully they’ll go home in disgust and leave me be.”

Snape looks upon Harry with his sallow skin taking on a further deathly pallor.

“Harriet… are you attempting to imply that you… exposed yourself for the express purpose of burning the last bridges you have between yourself and the magical world?”

“Yes I am and yes I did. I knew that someday there might be a risk of either Ginny or someone other than you somehow managing to get way too close to finding me, and the only way I might be able to get them to go away is to take away the one thing they need from me.” And Harry refuses to be sorry about it.

“And what would that be? What possible protection could this serve against Ginevra of all people? Would she not… find a manner of sickening pleasure at the sight of… you?”

“She only acted as if she were attracted to me when other people were around. When we were alone she had no qualms about being honest towards how she found my changing body repulsive. She did not pursue me because she loved me, she was only interested in the legend making her life into a fairytale and to have fun with a James Potter look-alike.” Harry tells him as emotionlessly as they can manage. There is no need to cry over it anymore, Harry has long ago stopped caring about what Ginny thinks.

“Why then?” Snape demands. “How does any of it take away something that she might have needed from you?”

“Virtue. Harry Potter was sold to the public as the embodiment of Purebred virtue. Ginny dosed me because she knew that in your world a person’s worth is only measured by both their reputation and their eligibility for breeding stock and that in your world a Pureblood can own a half-blood or muggleborn as long as they are the first to strip away that commodified virtue and hold it hostage by saying that I had to stay with her or be cast out by the Purebreds I was relying on to look after me while I was too sick to get out of bed. It didn’t work in Ginny’s case, because the muggle-raised don’t care about that outdated bollocks and despite her going on and on about reputation, I still tried to leave. She never seemed grasp the fact that I did not care about Purebred culture. She always expected me to act like a Pureblood and the more I acted like a muggle the more repulsed she got. She fought the war to stand by her family’s side in taking pity upon us lowly muggles and was… hurt that a muggle-raised person did not see a marriage with her as a _beneficial_ arrangement. The same way Purebloods see love as being more of a happy accident rather than a necessity. She was in love with the idea of how being married to the Savior would sound on paper, how my reputation would boost her own, how combining the Potter and Weasley lines would produce seventy-five percent Purebred children, how my virtue would elevate her into a sort of dynasty within a new wizarding royal family now that the Black family and a good chunk of the really prominent family lines are gone. Therefore if I take that reputation away she’ll have no motive to try anything. With my bare arse displayed for all to see I will no longer be profitable for her.”

Snape seems… devastated for some reason. Harry hesitates to try to explain further, sensing that despite being a half-blood Snape doesn’t intuitively find Harry’s job to be nearly as empowering as everyone else so far had seen it as being.

Harry takes their thumb from under where Snape’s hand still rested over Harry’s and places as much of it atop Snape’s knuckle joints to give the sallow skin a reassuring squeeze.

“There is more that I have to tell you about what happened to me, and what I’ve had to do to ensure my own survival, but in order for any of it to make sense we need to finish the rest of this and the other documentary.”

“…Survival.” Snape parrots, sounding too exhausted to scoff properly.

“Yes. Survival. Aside from the obvious fact that I do not desire to be conscripted into another involuntary draft for the next Purebred melodrama or whatever insanity is going on over there that is driving everyone to flee while they are still able. I get the distinct feeling that not even Harry Potter can live through five days of trying to put that mess back together.”

The man sighs, looking distinctly ill. Moving his other hand up to rub Harry’s back in soothing circles, a shocking display of empathy, but Harry senses that Snape’s probably still really shaken by everything he’s found out during his whole trip so far and thus is still maybe thinking about all of the parallels between Harry’s life and mum’s.

“You cannot simply tell me?”

“I could but I’d lose my voice trying to explain what a Gorilla girl is and the importance of Sunflower catalogues, and why the photographer from that Oslo show you went to are all such a big deal in pioneering using modeling as therapy.”

“Pardon?”

“See? Confusing. Let’s watch the show so that we can finish this conversation.”

As expected Snape is still far from happy even after he’s watched the documentaries and gained a new perspective over the fact that he’s in a _very_ different world now.

Yet, thankfully, he seems to realize that Harry is not in immediate danger while also coming to slight begrudging terms with the fact that Harry’s not going to stop modeling anytime soon.

He’s grouchy about it. Grouchy as hell. But he doesn’t throw a tantrum.

Harry counts this as a win. Even if he starts showing up after the classes have finished and the studio sessions are over with like a big dark scowling bodyguard escorting Harry home.


End file.
